Money saving tips for low carb shoppers!
 

There are a few threads about this woe being more expensive so I figured if we could post what we do to save money?
My grocery bill for 4 people is around $80/wk, down about $35-40 since I'm not buying junk anymore, and I don't even really use that many coupons. I do shop sales, and I stick to natural foods rather than packaged low carb foods.

My tips:

1. Sam's Club is a great source for so many low carb items. nuts in bulk, meats, cheese, mayo, vegetables, bars if you use them.

2. Buy whole heads of romaine or lettuce of your choice. Wash it and store it in a bowl covered with a damp paper towel. It's so much cheaper than the bags of prewashed lettuce! Same with heads of broccoli etc. Wash and put away when you get home, then you have it all ready for the week.

3. Buy cheese in big chunks and make your own cubes for snacking rather than buying string cheese or already cubed cheese. Big savings.

4. Buy a turkey breast and roast it rather than buying the turkey at the deli. It's usually around $2/lb for a turkey breast, but can be $8/lb for the deli meat! Besides, then you KNOW what's in it.

5. Buy one lot of bottled water, then refill the empties rather than buying new ones every week. Bottled water gets to be expensive after a while.

6. Buy cheap chicken wings, cook up a bunch and have them in the freezer. Just reheat for a quick lunch.

7. Try to keep away from packaged low carb convenient foods. They're terribly expensive, and labels can be deceiving.

8. Water down dressings a bit. Ranch and bleu cheese especially have so much flavor that they can hold up to it.

9. Make your own salad dressings. I have three that I made myself and all three are cheaper than one single bottle of store bought dressing. Big savings since we eat so much of it.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

great ideas!!

Here are a few more threads on the topic:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...0693#post340693
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...&threadid=39472

:)

Rosie,

Great ideas. I don't belong to Sams right now, just Costco. Do you belong to Costco to know which is better?

Have you posted your salad dressing recipes anywhere? I make a sweet and sour with about 2 parts splenda to 1 part apple cider vineagar to get the base taste and then add mayo (sorry, make it to taste, never really measured).


I have heard some people have had some luck buying lesser cuts of meat but using a really good marinade.

Sandy

For my ranch I just buy the packets of ranch mix and then mix them with 1 c. mayo and 1/2 c. each cream and water.

For the italian, I buy the italian packets and make them with good olive oil and vinegar.

And the other is a sugar free raspberry vinaigrette that I converted from a recipe on allrecipes. :)

We don't have Costco here, but I've heard people say it's better than Sam's.

I like Costco because they treat their employees better. But that's another story.

I am finding great deals at a restaurant supply store we have called "Smart & Final". I buy Italian dressing mix that make 1 gallon of dressing for the price that it'd make 2 cups of dressing from the super market.

They've also got Torani sugar free syrups for $3.99. And they have extracts and flavorings in huge bottles, far cheaper than the supermarket. Also spices come in enormous containers and are very cheap.

<giggles> Sorry, maybe you mean a DAMP paper towel? Although I've been angry at them myself from time to time!

My hint would be to rely on eggs for at least a meal a day. Cheap and versatile.

Also, the Crock Pot! Take a cheap roast, toss it in with some onion, garlic, celery, salt and pepper just a little broth or water and you get a tender pot roast for supper with no effort.

Really excellent tips! I might add that if you want flour-type substances for various recipes, try to find a supermarket with a bulk section. We have two that sell soy flour, vital wheat gluten and whole wheat flour (among other things) in the bulk. One is quite a bit spendier than the other. I've found that with those three flours there's not much of anything a person can't make. Although we don't bake frequently, we do occasionally like a little something like a biscuit, or even batter for deep-frying. Vital wheat gluten and soy flour (not to be confused with soy protein isolate which is a cooked form and much, much more expensive) mixed with a little cream, water and seasonings makes a wonderful super LC breading for fish, finger steaks and onion rings. If the batter is somewhat on the thin side it's super crunchy and super yummy!

Also, when it comes to meat, I like to think about how much I want to spend per meal. I try to keep dinner meat to between $3 and $4. This can be a challenge at best. WalMart sells some awesome bratwurst sausages, 5 to a pack (4-oz. sausages) for under $3. That's plenty of meat even for my meat hogs.

I love turkey burger! It's cheap--99 cents a pound around here, and it makes absolutely wonderful breakfast meat. I like cooking it like sausage, and if you buy it in bulk (we can buy 10-pound chubs) it's easy enough to add a few seasonings to it before re-packaging for the freezer for excellent sausage. We also like it for the meat in stir-fries. I prefer ground beef for taco meat, but I know quite a few people who really like the ground turkey, so if you do it can be great for taco salads, too!

oops. :o :lol:

Ha ha - one of my favorite topics. ;) I'm a cheapo. Great tips, Rosie. :thup:

- I confess, I'm usually too lazy to wash lettuce, so I buy bagged baby spinach instead. :thup: Much cheaper, way more nutritious, and more flexible (you wouldn't want to toss that lettuce into a quiche!)

- Buy the tubes of sausage meat. It's cheaper (at least in my area), and your hand-made patties will cook faster. Save the lard that cooks out. Just refrigerate it. Then use it to cook eggs. Delicious, and you've saved yourself some expensive butter.

- Buy meat on the bone, then boil the bones for broth. Or, even easier, roast the meat with some water and onions in the bottom of the pan. Not only are you saving money on the meat, but you're saving what you would have spent on packaged broth. Plus, the homemade broth tastes way better and you know you're not getting excess preservatives. :thup: Bonus: you can use the fat on the top for cooking veggies, etc. It's delicious. Butter and olive oil are expensive: try to use up that perfectly good fat that you'd normally toss.

- Combine that leftover broth with your leftover veggies that you might have otherwise thrown out and make soup. Be creative - you don't need a gourmet recipe.

For a snack my husband bakes chicken thighs and has them with hot sauce. We catch the drippings in a pan underneath and it becomes chicken stock that I use in recipes for cream sauces, like creamy basil pesto and creamy tarragon for chicken.

We have a dollar store in our town called the 99cents store and it's great for finding things cheap from fresh eggs to steaks to chicken to frozen tuna steaks. There's hot dogs, deli meats, cheeses, and even heavy whipping cream at times. The stock varies but the price is right. I always go there first before I go to the market.

I also go to the ethnic markets first. Their meats are a great quality and usually much cheaper than the usual store prices. That way I don't have to have the huge freezer for buying in bulk :lol:.

Plus some of these ethnic places have the best aisles for finding the harder to find ingredients required in these recipes.

Charlie Girl