The prices of food have been rising. It is very important to be a conscious shopper in order to cut down food and grocery expenses. My husband told me last night about a news he heard that the parents of a family try to eat less so that their kids could have more to eat due to the rising food prices. As I said before, knowing the price plays a key role in controlling your food budget.

I have done my weekly shopping on Tuesday in Foods Co this week. I spent $54.42 and the groceries I bought included a family pack of chicken legs and a pack of pork chops. I always keep my freezer well stocked with meat, fish and shrimps. I didn’t really need to do more shopping this week, but I was browsing the weekly flyers yesterday and saw that Foods Co has mangos 2 for 98¢ and pork spareribs $1.27 per pound on sale while Safeway has mangos 4 for $1, pork spareribs $1.69 per pound. I like to stockpile some ribs for BBQ, and Safeway has pork shoulder country style ribs on sale for 99¢ per pound today, Thursday, one day only. I decided to go to Safeway to stock up on mangos and country style ribs instead of spareribs. Since I had to drop Katrina to her preschool anyway, and Safeway is nearby.

So I was there in Safeway, but could not find pork country style ribs. Then I heard two lady asking the butcher about ribs, the butcher promised to bring out ribs soon. It’s early in the morning, and it’s their special one-day sale item, and yet they didn’t have it ready. So I went to get mangos first, and looked for other good deals. I decided to buy 12 mangos for $3. I can keep some mangos on the counter to ripe, and some in the fridge. Mangos are delicious as fruit, and also as a side dish, such as mango salad, which goes great with BBQ ribs. I did not find other good deals. I came back to the meat isle, and found rib packages. I got 2 packages, about 10 pounds total, the regular price is $2.99 per pound, so I saved about $20. I’m glad that I heard the conversation between the two ladies and the butcher. Next time, I’ll know to ask, instead of just leaving there without getting what I plan to buy. At checkout, I paid $15.69 total.

Next week I will not need to stock up on meat, I will plan on going to the farmer’s market to buy vegetables. I love their vegetables, it’s cheap and fresh, I usually plan on going there once or twice a month. So this week I spent $70.11 total on food and grocery, next week I expect to spend even less.

The Baglady has some good advices on her recent post: Is Inflation Eating Away Your Savings , in which she mentioned her post on Wise Bread: Safeway Savings Rally-How I got 9 bags of groceries for $13. It’s quite a fun read. It’s quite helpful when someone gives you a detailed example of how they shop wisely.

Another post you may be interested in: How we stockpile food on Thriftiness Becomes Us.

Carnival

Canival of Ethics, Values, and Personal Finance-May Edition is live in the air. The posts under the category of ‘conscious consuming’ are saying what I’m saying here: be a conscious shopper. Ug99, the destruction of wheat crops and prices in our local supermarket mentioned the price of Parmesan cheese is up from $3.50 to over $6. I have noticed myself the prices of food on some items have increased steeply, not just 10% or 20%, but well over 50%, isn’t it amazing? Hank wrote a post, My Comcast bill is $160.24 per month; what am I possibly paying for? to ask for better alternative to replace his Comcast service, it is certainly an outrageous bill. If you are looking for budget travel in Europe, check out this post: Barcelona on 10 Euro per day for two people, I like to go there someday. Anyway, check out the Carnival yourself, there are a lot of good posts there. I’m going to read some more myself.