Simple and Easy Ways to Save on Food

Food is definitely something that I talk about it a lot, and it's obvious from the variety of  posts that I have already written on the topic. I decided as part of the new way I was going to write on this blog was to make things succinct, to the point and easy for readers to follow. So here are some general things that I think about when I go to the grocery store.

• Purchase generic brand or private label products instead of name brand foods

• Yes I know everyone thinks the No Name brand tastes like crap, but that's exactly what they want you to think because of the millions they spend on branding each year. What's often the case is the same company that produces private label/no name food often has their own name brand product or is the name brand product you always buy just minus the flashy packaging. 

• Purchase full fruit instead of cut up packaged versions
• Please don't be extremely lazy. You can buy a full pineapple for $1 on sale at No Frills or pre cut pineapple for almost $3-$5. Oh and fruit trays are extremely expensive too, so please don't buy them. 
• Buy a big bag of regular carrots, peel and cut them. It will turn out to be a lot cheaper than the $2-3 dollar bag of baby carrots.
• Check out this site on how to cut an avocado, pineapple and mango, because yes I know they are annoying to cut.

• Buy in Bulk
• For the most part, buying in bulk will save you money. This is often the case with meat products. Of course your thinking, I don't need 8 chicken breasts. Well eventually you do. Buy ziploc bags and bag up the meat in meal size portions and you have meat for a while and you've saved by buying in bulk and probably getting it on sale as well.
• You can also buy yourself a really large piece of pork and cut your own pork chops and once again bag them in individual portions. Check out the video here
• Don't Buy in Bulk
• Yup I know, I'm contradicting myself, but there are situations where buying in bulk may not be your cheapest option. Costco is one example. It's really important to know your prices when you go to Costco because some products aren't that cheap, it just seems cheap because its a massive box. A few products I have found at Costco that are a great deal is Liberte Greek Yogurt, 2 Tubs for about you $7.50 I believe, or 3kg of Oatmeal for $7 approximately as well. Know your prices and you will be fine
• Also when using coupons it actually makes more sense to purchase smaller formats of the products and use more coupons. Instead of saving $0.50 on a $4 item, buy the smaller format at $2 and save more if you are using multiple coupons on multiple smaller formats.
• Don't Go For Variety
• I've learned this the hard way. I thought I was going to be a gourmet chef and would make a variety of meals all the time. And of course I didn't finish a bunch of food I purchased, it went bad and all the ingredients cost me quite a lot more. If you stick to a few staples and go for less variety you end up spending less and using it up without dumping half of it in the garbage. Your a student not a chef.

Also another tip when you really need to buy something and it's not on sale, make sure to check the unit price of the product which is often in grams or kg.


This is a great way to compare 2 products and determine which is less expensive based on the cost per oz, lb, g or kg. A product that costs. $0.263 per oz is cheaper than a product that costs about $0.5 per oz

How do you save on food?

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Grocery Shopping Basics

Since tomorrow's the day that grocery flyers come out, I figured this would be the perfect time to talk about grocery shopping and where to find the best deals.

Friday, for most grocery retailers is the day where their new sales start.

Some tips when going grocery shopping;

• Know your prices
• Write a list, you will be less likely to buy things you don't need (blog post later about this)
• Don't go hungry, it's the worst, you will want to buy everything!

Especially for students, the best store to frequent are often No Frills, Food Basics and other discount grocery stores including Walmart. These stores often have better prices everyday on non-sale items, and often have really good sales including the dollar sale that No Frills often has.

When it comes to the more expensive grocery stores like Metro, Valuemart, Sobeys , Zehrs, Loblaws etc . The benefits are that they tend to have fresher produce and greater selection as well as loyalty programs. Plus you don't have to pay for a cart...

When checking out Metro, I also recommend liking them on Facebook, they often will post coupons and other savings that are exclusive to fans. 

For Zehr's stores, student discounts are offered on Tuesdays. Often their everyday prices aren't as cheap as stores like food basics or no frills, but adding a 10% on top of sale prices could definitely be worth it.

Some other stores may offer this promotion as well, but it is often occurs in specific cities (often University towns) double check out your stores to find out if they offer student discounts.

Some help when it comes to prices:

It's super helpful to go into a grocery store knowing average prices for certain items, that way you know if you are actually getting a good deal or not.

Check out the No Frills price guide by clicking on the image below. It allows you to check certain products and compare pricing at other grocery stores. 

Some price guides that I follow when it comes to certain items;

Brick Cheese (500g) $4.50-$6 is often a good price

Baby Carrots (small bag) $1 (often regular price at No Frills)

Broccoli $1 or less

Apples less than a dollar is always better

Cream Cheese spreadable (Philadelphia) $3-$4

Staples like Milk and Eggs are rarely on sale, so if you can find coupons for these things it's a bonus, Shoppers Drug Mart is often a good place for staples like these and you can collect shoppers optimum points

Non-whole wheat (not national brand) you can often find for $1 sometimes on sale at No Frills

Whole Wheat Bread (Country Harvest/Dempsters) $2-$3

Whole Grain Bagels (Country Harvest/Dempsters) $2-$3

Dempster's Wonderbread is often around $1.50-$2.50 at a good price, you can often find coupons for these

Yogurt (Source 16 packs of individual yogurts) $3.99-5.50- Recently saw these on sale for about $4.50 at No Frills, and the same week for about $7 at Metro..it was the same yogurt

Tubs of Yogurt (name brand) often $2-$3 is pretty good

Boneless Chicken $3-$4 Often pretty good per pound, it's often the most expensive chicken you can buy. It's often cheaper to buy bone in and you can remove it.

Kraft Dinner (regular) $1 or less if often a really good price for a box

Kraft Dinner (specialty) $1.50 is often a decent price for a box

Pasta $1-$1.50 if you aren't picky about the brands you buy a regular box is often around this price, you can also often find coupon for Catelli brand pasta's when you buy more than 1 box. I have actually managed to combine coupons and a sale at metro which was a 2for $5 dollar deal for their whole wheat pasta

A Guide to reading produce labels;
What products have labels-all produce; fruits, vegetables, dried fruit, herbs and nuts
Conventionally-grown fruit: 4 digit numbers. Example-Banana-4011. You can use this website to search PLU codes as well
Organically-grown fruit: This produce has five digit labels that start with the number 9. An organically-grown banana would be 94011.
Genetically modified food: These 5 digit labels start with 8. Example-genetically engineered tomato 84805.

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Images: 

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