Re: Groceries
 

Less than a $ a pound. Impressive.

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Sobeys this week (3 days only) Pork Chops $1.88 lb. Packed in sixes.

Bought two packs yesterday, total $12. Ziplocked them into 3 bags, so three meals @ $4 each time for the four of us sorted. :thumbup:

Re: Groceries
 

This weeks grocery shop.

3 Boneless tenderloin pork chops**

Boneless loin chops**

2 chicken breasts***

3 salmon steaks 6.23**

Pumpkin Seed Oil

2 packages of frozen fruit**

4 banana's*

1 pound of grapes***

Bag of oranges***

milk***

eggs

bread

cereal**

bag of carrots**

1 bell pepper**

1 cucumber

4 tomatoes

2 boxes of mac and cheese

Total 88.33 and that is with the savings card, saved 17.77 off the shelf price...lol


Cheapest item on this list was the mac and cheese 1.00 per box.

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My Sobeys receipt showed a spend of $70 with a save of $60.
Of course I would never have spent $130 for the same items another time, nor would $130 have been the total price another time (more likely around $100) but it does show the benefits of spending a few minutes looking at the flyer each week.

12 Corn cobs for $2.98 back at Superstore. :thumbup:

Re: Groceries
 

not bad at all, some good bargain prices Bristol

Sobeys in these parts is one of the more pricey stores as is Metro/Dominion

Our local 'Foodbasics' store this week have 12 corn on the cob for $1.97 & lean ground beef for $2.99/Ib

We can price match, so it'll be from the local no frills or Freshco/Price chopper, together with other grocery items that will match the flyer price from the other stores

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Here too. Certainly more than Superstore/Loblaws.

But there's always significant stuff cheaper there than Superstore.

The proverbial "grocery basket" will probably be cheaper at Superstore nine times out of ten, but using both is cheaper again.

Not always practical, some say, but both the main Superstores here have a Sobeys just a few minutes away. By bike, on foot, bus or taxi it's easy to cover both in a week. Easier by car.

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Good to know - thanks! Sadly I don't have Costco membership...

:)

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JS @ post 323 "Salmon steaks", you'd mentioned somewhere previous your dislike of anything fish - are you now able to eat it?

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My wife eat's salmon, tuna, trout, sardines, oysters, and so on. You name it as a sea food item and she likes it.


Corn was for 79 cents per ear, haven't had any good deals yet this year, just the usual price.

I'd never have bought most of the items had they not been on sale, if it's not on sale, I don't buy it...lol

I don't check flyers as we only have 1 store worth going to, but I do look for the sale tags they place on the shelves for the items on sale and the items that give you bonus points, so I rarely walk out without a large amount of bonus points and a 20-30 savings on the receipt.

If we had more coupons like the US has, I could save more, but the coupons we get are never for things we buy and rarely for food items...

Save On lets you redeem points for things like free milk, free ground beef, potatoes, eggs and a few other basics, so I save points for the lean times when money is short, and use them for those items so we can get food still.

Usually they have a spent 35 dollars and get 375 bonus points, so I can get a good amount of points pretty quickly.

We do go to Nesters for meat though, they have best meat prices, sometimes as much as half the price of Save On, but their dry goods and produce cost more.

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I could make a filet of venison pocket stuffed with salmon and oysters that a lot of other people would probably like. :lol: "The Cordon Bleu Must Go Through!"

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Here's a money saver worth looking at.

Yves Veggie Cuisine
"Ground Round"

I saw several variations on this at Sobeys - no doubt other stores sell it - burgers, sausage, plain ground, taco mix.

A couple of weeks ago I bought the Taco version. $4. It was very good and very meat like. The obvious difference was lack of fat.

I don't normally go for veggie versions of meat as the best one can usually hope for is "not bad, if you add a bit of meat to it." :o

But I gave this one a go and the next time I was back in the store I looked at the other packs and noticed the plain version was available in a pack of four lumps. Now they were slightly smaller lumps than the single one I'd previously bought but it was still close to 4 times the quantity as the single pack and only $10.

According to the blurb, each individual pack is the equivalent of 1lb of ground beef. I'm guessing that means that cook through a lb of ground beef, drain off the fat and you're left with the same weight as Yves' ground round.

So that's effectively 1lb of very lean 'ground' for $2.50 which is a bargain.

I repeat, it was really very good with the right flavouring to enhance/disguise it. Not sure how a burger would turn out - they were more expensive anyway - but if you don't mind adding chilli, or taco mix or whatever you normally add to ground beef, it would be a healthy and cheap alternative. As I say, the major difference is the lack of fat. It even 'feels' like your normal ground beef when you eat it.

If I'd had one of these tacos and one ground beef version without seeing it prepared, I wouldn't have noticed the difference.

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I've never tried that brand, but I do buy another brand of veggie patties, I think they run about 4 dollars for 6 of them and with mayo and a bun, really quite good.

I'll have to try the brand you mentioned there, it's on sale a lot so might be a good option for tacos and pasta sauces.

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each pack is 12 OZ

http://www.yvesveggie.com/products/d...-taco-stuffers

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The pack didn't look like that but it would be about right I suppose.
Cook up a pound of ground beef, strain off the fat and you probably have 12oz of meat.

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http://hain-celestial.ca/en/OurBrand...gieGroundRound
This is the Canadian version.

:)

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We buy that for health reasons! Kids don't even notice.

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.

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Speaking of meat substitutes. Two boxes of falafels in the fridge that I bought on impulse last week and am not sure what to do with. I usually make them into a falafel pita (with veggies and humous) but want to do something different (especially as I have no pita). Any good tips on how to consume falafels?

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:rofl::rofl:

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With salad, hummus. Salsa maybe?
with beans and chips?

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seriously, I would'nt bother but to throw them in the trash along with the Yves Veggie Cuisine "Ground Round"

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Why?

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Probably assumes if it's not meat it has to be gross..... The brand we normally buy for meat substitute I like far better then beef, tastier and healthier lower calorie, no real reason to spend more on meat...


I haven't tried the Ives brand, but looking at the ingredients, I prefer the brand we are using, Gardein is the brand, but I am not sure if they make a ground meat alternative, we just buy patties since I don't use ground meat for tacos, prefer using chicken chunks cut from breast of chicken instead....

Costco here as a really good veggie patty as well, it's not Kirkland, but another brand, can't recall the never, man are they good though, way better then any beef burger.

* I am not vegetarian, just prefer the taste of the veggie based patties over real meat, and I am not generally a fan of veggies in general.

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I haven't had time to read the many pages to this thread but has anyone else been using the coupon smartphone apps? The ones I use are Checkout 51, Groupon Snap and Zweet.

They give you a list of coupons each week, if you buy anything on the list you take pics of your receipt, submit and they give you virtual cash. When you get to a certain amount you cash out and get a real life cheque. Its basically so they can see the kinds of things people are buying each week and replaces the old store loyalty cards.

As long as you aren't suckered into buying stuff specially from the list just cause its on there and just use it for the stuff you usually get it can soon add up. They often have basic stuff on there like milk, fruit, veg, as well as some common branded stuff. Tried it for about 6 months now and just got some cashback checks totalling almost $200.

May not be everyone's cup of tea but every little helps as they say.

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I threw them into some spiced couscous and topped with sautéed sweet peppers. Not bad. But might need to buy some pita after all.

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What's the reduction on tea? ;)

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Jsmth - is the veggie burger brand Veggie Patch? I've bought a few things from Costco from that brand - falafel, veg burger, etc - and it's all been excellent.

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store bought prepared foods with all the extra unnecessary crap thats in them & the cost - thats what.

Why not make your own veggie burgers [lean ground substitutes], or your own falafal, hummus, pakora, corn chips, salsa etc & not the ever so easy prepared salad in a bag or thats in a plastic container.

BTW JSmith, I'm OK with most all foods, espically anything that I can prepare from raw ingredients - we do home made pasta & pasta sauce, not the ever so convenient pre-packaged prepared crap from the store.

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But didn't we just show it to be half the cost? ;)

Knitted? :lol:
I'm all for doing your own (within reason) but there's usually a brand available for 99c for 454g. Is it worth the effort? It's the sauce that matters surely?

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yeah we do our own for special occasions but it's quite a lot of work and there are some boxed pastas that are very good. No doubt that your own is better, but it takes quite awhile and makes a bit of a mess! (Plus then at least for us we are restricted to spaghetti/linguine or lasagne/cannelloni/etc as we don't have the attachments to do shapes like penne or fusilli etc.)

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On the veggie prepared with all the non-essential prepared ingredients (label in my earler link)

You said $4 for 12 oz (340g) [was that frozen when bought or did you stick it in the frezzer for use later] thats per pound $5.33 on the basis zero shrinkage from water or the additives in cooking it.

Of course you wouldn't know what the shrinkage is on that veggie pack after its cooked - or did you weigh it?

Take the lean ground beef that I buy at $2.99/lb at a cost to the prepared veggie taco mixture $5.33/Ib which I would make from fresh with zero additives.

I make my own veggie stock & veggie meat subsitute - but thats me

Maybe my maths suck on this one

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On the pasta & sauce 100% every time, make what you eat today, unless its raw meat [chicken, beef, pork, goat] bought in bulk into portions & freeze.

Veg the same way, bought today - gone in one or two days max. No throw outs from my fridge

Fish bought the same day cooked & eaten, or fish into a big pot of home made fish soup, dived & frozen.

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I went to No Frills for the sales, bought 2 packs of pork ribs, a family pack of chicken wings, a box of Highliner fish fingers ($7 off!) and a duck ($10.50 not on sale) and the bill was $38.50.

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Add in some spuds, pasta, rice & veg - thats enough food in dinner meals for two people for two weeks.

From all of that, there is enough bones (from the leftovers or stock) to make a pot of soup

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I save the tips from the wings and when I have a few cartons (and maybe a carcass [eyes the duck :-)]), I'll boil them down for stock.

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I like sausage rolls. :thumbup:

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I am doubtful I could make each patty from scratch cheaper, looking at the ingredients on a recipe to make 4 patties the can of beans and the onion alone already cost more then the entire package of 6 pre-made patties.


There are certainly some things I can make cheaper at home, but the whole mindset of it's always cheaper to make at home is wrong, take pasta, there is no way I can make the same amount of it for 99 cents which is what the dry stuff costs that we buy.

Sometimes financially it makes sense to buy pre-made.

Living in an apartment with limited kitchen space, freezer space and just space in general, cooking complicated or long meals is too difficult, time consuming, and rarely cost effective, generally better but not always, pasta making isn't my thing, anything in the store will taste better...lol

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2.99 ground beef would be ideal again, on sale it's 3.99/lb here, not on sale nearly 5/lb pound.

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I think that might be it. I happened to try a sample once and asked what it was, and couldn't believe it was a veggie patty...lol

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Agreed, the veggie burgers were fantastic and tasted no different, they were really tasty!