Big Bite: How to cut your food costs as prices go up
Thrifty shopper shares her secrets, like letting technology help take a Big Bite out of your food costs
Catherine Puchalski has a job not to make money, but rather to save it.
A year ago she was laid off from an engineering firm — another victim to slumping oil prices. Now her job is to keep her family food budget down, even as food prices rise.
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"It's now become my job to make sure that I not only give our kids and husband healthy meals but also save money."
The 38-year-old takes this seriously.
It all starts at the kitchen table where she plans her menu for the week, so that she only has to shop once.
"I only do it once because otherwise I'd spend too much. You never leave the grocery store with just one item."
Once her list is done, she opens Flipp, an app which compiles all the flyers she used to get in paper form, so she can scour for deals.
Today, she finds leaf lettuce on sale, so she scratches out the "romaine" on her list and replaces it with "leaf." Puchalski subscribes to the "watch the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves" school of saving.
Puchalski also sticks to her favourite store, Real Canadian Superstore, for a few reasons. She has a credit card that allows her to collect shopping points which she then redeems on groceries.
And she uses their app to watch for deals.
"Typically I get $40 to $60 a month in points I can then spend on groceries."
Strict budget
She keeps to a strict budget, spending no more than $150 a week on food for her family of four.
"And that includes everything from food to toiletries to cleaning supplies."
"It's definitely more of a challenge. I've had to get a bit more creative. I used to buy chicken breasts. I'll make it fun to have drumsticks on a weekly basis and then I wait until chicken breasts go on sale and then I'll pick up a pack and freeze them."
She makes a pound of ground beef into pasta sauce that she can stretch over three meals.
Other tips she has: never buy too much or you'll waste food, and make it yourself — as packaged food is always more expensive.
"I'm not one of those that's going to pull lint out of my dryer and use it for fuel starter. I'm not that nuts. But if I don't have to spend, I'd rather save it."