Loading…
26
Started shopping at the Latino grocery instead of the big chain and my grocery bill dropped $60 a week
I used to do all my shopping at the big chain near my place in Phoenix and was spending about $180 a week for two people. Money got tight in January so I finally walked into the Mercado two blocks over that I had been driving past for years. The produce alone is nuts, limes were 8 for a dollar while the chain wanted 50 cents each, and chicken thighs were $1.29 a pound instead of $2.99. The butcher counter will sell you a whole cut up chicken for like $6 and the dried beans and rice are half the price. I also started buying the big bags of onions and peppers and chopping them Sunday to freeze, which killed my weeknight takeout habit. I got our weekly total down to around $115 and honestly we eat better now. Does anyone else do their main shopping at a smaller ethnic market, and did you have to learn a whole new set of meals to make it work?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
jana_hart1828d ago
Learned pretty quick that the Mercado prices are only that low if you actually use everything you buy, and that part bit me at first. Bought one of those giant bags of limes for a dollar thinking I was so smart, then watched half of them rot on the counter because two people can only eat so many limes, lol. Same thing with the big packs of chicken thighs, you gotta freeze half right when you get home or you lose the savings to the trash can. So yeah your bill went down but the real trick is buying to your actual habits, not just to the price tag. The dried beans thing is no joke though, a bag lasts forever and costs almost nothing. Sounds like you already figured out the chopping and freezing part, which is honestly the whole game with these smaller spots.
4