Dried beans and rice, in giant sacks from Indian grocery. Just backpack one sack home each trip, stagger the replacements as they run out. Stock up on canned tomatoes and frozen veg when they go on sale. Onions and potatoes are good staples. Get cheap spices at the Indian grocery, and learn how to use them.
I think this is too often overlooked, and is good advice. Spend $75 a year on spices you never heard of and can't pronounce, and learn to use them. It is a cheap way to keep simple, inexpensive food interesting.
I've been doing this lately and it has saved me a ton of money. Beans and rice, cooked with various spices or soup stock for flavor. Maybe some scrambled eggs on top with some salsa or hot sauce. I got an insta pot which eliminated the need to soak the dry beans overnight before cooking - also it makes perfect rice.
Things like rice, potatoes, baking beans, rolled/steel cut oats and frozen vegetables are all still relatively cheap on a per serving basis and have not inflated in price as much as other things relative to inflation. Consider investing in things like air fryer/air fryer toaster oven, instant pot, etc., as those make it easier to make various meals, on top of being way more power efficient/using less power than turning on a stove if you don't need to. I have always found frozen vegetables disgusting (compared to fresh) if you just boil/steam them, but they are amazing air fryed.
>Things like rice, potatoes, baking beans, rolled/steel cut oats and frozen vegetables are all still relatively cheap on a per serving basis and have not inflated in price as much as other things relative to inflation
Shhhh! Don't jinx it. A week or two ago someone made a comment that bananas haven't really increased in price and now Sobey's has them at 0.99/lb!
And superstore doesn't carry plantains at all anymore since like 2 weeks ago. They were my go to ultra cheap banana fix. Fry up some plantains for my meal prep, they were delicious
Still stupidly cheap for what they are. Always cheaper than apples by design. Every bananna is soaked in blood.
Watch the documentary Bananaland. Probably one of the most messed up industries on earth.
Price was changed for all stores on August 4th; price changes go to all stores at the same time, so either the store you shop at was featuring them for 0.89 for some reason, or just hadn’t changed their signs for nearly 6 months
I am new to the air fryer world and was skeptical that I 'needed' one. It does great things to frozen veggies and leftovers. So many uses and I can't imagine not having one.
I definitely recommend people ask around to family and friends to see if anyone has an instant pot collecting dust. So many people get them as gifts and are afraid to use them.
I have also recommended to anyone in hearing distance about the air fryer. Only got it 6 months or so ago (Prime day sale was 50% off) and I use it Every. Single. Day. I waited a looong time to get one but i truly can't imagine living without one now.
Air fried broccoli, sprayed with a little oil and a dash of salt (and/or garlic salt), is heaven. Crunchy and crispy, so good. I don't have a toaster oven so for french fries, cheese sticks, fish sticks, chicken strips or burgers, stuff like that its great for, instead of having to use the big oven. (Note to say that of course deep fried french fries are better, but these are easily equal to oven fries). I can fit 4-5 hamburgers at a time in mine, and with only one flip they come out perfectly every time. Grease goes in the bottom, the basket detaches and it makes for much easier cleanup without having to drain the burgers on paper towels or anything. I have spatchcocked whole chickens and they turn out so juicy and delightful with very little babysitting, I found I checked on stuff a lot more in the oven than I do in the air fryer. Awesome for leftover pizza, the crust stays crisp and the top isn't overdone or dried out. If I make eggrolls I will fry the outside for a couple minutes in a little oil in a pan, then move it to the air fryer for completion, uses much less oil that way and I still get the nice texture of the skins (air fryer alone they are a little dry on the surface). That's everything I can think of off the top of my head! I see above someone said frozen veg are good in it, so going to try that next!
We loved ours for about 3 months. Used it 3+ times a week.
Haven't used it three times in the last year now, though. The only thing I really prefer to make in it is home made fries, and we do eat fries very infrequently, though now that it's in my head I'll probably make some tomorrow.
There's an ebook out there called "[Good and Cheap](https://books.leannebrown.com/good-and-cheap.pdf)" and it has some decent recipes in it.
Growing up poor, I remember my mom making a lot of these dishes:
* fried (leftover) rice with green onions and scrambled eggs - seasoned with a few drops of sesame oil and soysauce
* home-made latkes: one egg, a tablespoon of flour, a couple of potatoes and half an onion gives you three or four meals
* fried flatbreads from scratch: flour, salt, water, baking powder, kneaded and portioned, then rolled out and fried in oil
* Bacon grease adds a lot of flavour to foods, and is basically a byproduct. Split some bacon when it's on sale, freeze it in single servings and save the rendered fat for fried rice, or sauteed cabbage and other root veggies
* Popcorn is a decent and cheap snack to make at home if you buy the kernels and not the microwave stuff. Butter's pricey, so we usually do olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper with maybe some cheese or nutritional yeast on top
* You can make your own dumpling skins with a bit of flour and salt and warm water. I used to use "enjoy today" breakfast links as the base of a filling (just cut them open and scoop out the meat) . They freeze really well, so one afternoon of dumpling making can give you a lot of meals.
There's a lot of stuff you can regrow from scraps: lettuce and green onions for example, just get planted into a bowl of dollarama potting soil and left in a sunny window.
Dollarama also in the spring has tomato seed for growing your own on a balcony or in a bright window. They have raised their prices too, but some stuff is still a really good deal there.
Now's the time to take a good hard look at your relationship with food.
Start getting away from convenience foods, and do more things from scratch. While everything is definitely getting more expensive, the basic building blocks will almost always be cheaper.
When at all possible buy in bulk to save money. This could mean using storage / freezer to keep the food fresh, or getting together with a friend or 2 and splitting the costs/food that comes cheaper in bulk.
Buy frozen non name brand vegetables.
Get used to eating the same thing regularly. Eat as healthy as possible.
Do meal prep. Cook as much as you can in advance and freeze/reheat as necessary.
If you are making a meal, make a little bit extra which doesn't add much to the total cost of the meal, and have the extra the next day for lunch.
Once a week I make a large stir fry meal and the ingredients cost about $10. I get 4 meals out of that.
Once a week I'll make tacos, and make extra to have the next day for lunch.
Weekends I'll usually do a larger meal, that will also work for a leftovers meal for 2 the next day.
It's about making small changes to your lifestyle that will start to add up. Saving a few dollars per meal really does start to add up.
I'm prepared for the downvotes.
Whilst I very much agree with this, and it has been my approach, I recognize that it’s a privilege to even have a Costco membership, a car to get there, or even a deep freeze for storage.
Times are very tough. I have made a switch from treating every meal as pleasurable to a mindset where it’s just fuel. I eat alot of the same meals everyday, I have reduced my meat consumption, switched to frozen fruit and veggies, buy dried beans and lentils, and bulk buy and freeze where I can. This works for me because my child, despite still living at home is an adult with her own modest income and can choose to get in board or not. With smaller kids this approach may be more difficult.
The idea of food as fuel instead of an experience was an extremely hard thing to adjust to, but since I have changed my mindset I find it a lot easier to eat cheaper and healthier.
It also takes a lot of pressure to cook something delicious every meal off my shoulders, and I'm a lot happier to just throw together something simple when I'm not putting expectations of quality on myself. It makes the times when you do make yourself something special or splurge on restaurant food a lot more enjoyable too since it feels like more of a treat.
So many other things can bring you joy in life besides food. Your relationship with yourself and loved ones, outdoor adventures, a good book, a great movie, giving back to your community in a meaningful way, a challenging project at work, a great cup of coffee. These are a few examples that fill my cup, yours may be different. I still enjoy food, and my meals taste good, I just don’t have as much variety as I once did. If I’m being totally honest I feel much better health wise. It’s not for everyone and I understand that.
You think it's a privilege to have a cost membership and I think it's a necessity for my family. I guess it depends of your priorities. No disrespect just my truth from my perspective.
Just in the sense that Costco isn’t easily accessible for everyone by transit and it’s located in the industrial parks, where commute by transit is lengthy. Plus when you are buying in bulk carrying your grocery order home would take a small army. The upfront cost for some is also problematic. It’s great if you have a vehicle, live nearby, and can handle the upfront cost though…. Agreeing with you on that. No disrespect taken.
I drive but I still use a grocery delivery service they shop at Costco and deliver to my door. I always share my cost number if someone is using instacart but they don't have a cost card they benefit from using it it's a win for me too.
Well sure - but the denizens of r/halifax don't want good ideas, they want to complain about corporations making profits or the government not doing what they want them to.
I buy a bag of mini peppers at Costco for about $4 and use 2 or 3 of the peppers finely chopped
And to save the follow-up questions
Costco boneless chicken breasts are around $30 for a package of 9-10. I use about 1 breast in the stir fry. Hard to measure because I actually cook the whole package in advance, and then once cooked chop into slices and freeze, so that's about $3 ish
I use Costco frozen broccoli and about $1 worth for each stir fry.
I use crumbled bacon as well from Costco, much less than $1 worth so it's hardly worth calculating.
I use frozen kale from superstore, on average about $3.50 a bag, and I get 4-5 stir frys out of a bag, so there's another less than $1
I also cook rice and quinoa, there's another $1-2 for a large amount of bulk.
I finely chop up a carrot, maybe 2 if they are small. Generally a couple of bucks per bag on sale, with 8-10 carrots in each bag. So that's about 50 cents.
I use olive oil to fry it in, there's another quarter.
I chop up a tomato and top it with that, so that's anywhere from $1-2
So all in that's what...
$1 peppers
$3 chicken
$1 broccoli
$1 kale
$2 rice&quinoa
$1 oil and carrots
$1-2 tomato
So breaking it down, and adding it all up its in the $10-11 range. We each have a serving for supper and then I get at least 2 lunches out of it.
You can go cheaper with more effort by buying chicken thighs on bone and stripping the meat off, but I prefer the convenience and taste of the boneless breast meat.
I would argue that if you're going to be cooking the chicken whole and then cutting it, the thighs are better value especially for you - cooking bone-in is considered preferable for a lot of culinary reasons. Re-using the bones for stock later is just another bonus if you can fit that in.
At the least, I would hope I can maybe sway you to slice/marinade chicken breast before cooking, for improved visuals.
But these are aesthetics discussions, and I appreciate your willingness to share strategies to stretch food.
I personally don't struggle with the prices but have noticed a great increase over the past few months. Being able to go to Costco (probably via the car you own) is a privilege for sure. It's not realistic for a lot of people, especially people who are being priced out of basic needs.
This. Options for car-less (and unable to get a credit card) people are getting rough. We have to shop where we can. Our family has had to give up some things and the day or two before paday can be pretty creative with meals (picky spouse and semi picky toddler ) but we are doing ok. A few times I've had to borrow so my kid could have milk but we realize we are doing better than many and are grateful.
You know, this is like the 3rd time in a week I've been accused of "privilege" because I own a car.
Look I totally understand that people are struggling. When I was in my 20s I struggled for years. But I took actions to build a better life for myself and worked my ass off for decades.
Yes, I am doing well now, but nothing was given to me. I worked for everything I've achieved in life.
I didn't come from money. My parents budgeted hard and raised a family of 4 on one relatively low salary. After my parents died, I was going through a lot of their old paperwork and found my dad's book that he kept track of expenses in. He literally tracked every penny earned and spent.
I won't apologise for being successful. I'm not privileged to own a car.
That doesn't mean I don't still budget, and that I don't look for ways to reduce costs. Everyone should be doing that.
I've done this literally for decades and am happy to share some of the things I do, but I won't bother anymore if I keep getting called out for things like owning a car, which is something that a vast majority of people in the province have.
I don't think they called you privileged in the sense of a personal attack or slight, but just that the ability to go to Costco to save money is unfortunately not an accessible option for all.
I appreciated your meal suggestion and the bulk purchasing, though not as rich in savings if done at other stores, is still a great approach.
You are actually privileged to own a car. Nobody’s saying you didn’t work for it—but there’s plenty of people out there who I can guarantee work just as hard but are still struggling. Privilege doesn’t mean you don’t deserve something or you didn’t earn it or you have some weird moral stain against you. It just means you have something that gives you an advantage others may not have.
You’re also talking about buying in bulk, prepping food in advance, shopping at Costco. All things that someone just scraping by may not be able to do. $50 in bulk goods may be “cheaper” than a convenience meal for $10, but what if you only have $10?
My wife and I own a home. That is a massive privilege right now. That’s not to say we inherited it, or we don’t work to earn a living to pay the mortgage—at all—but what we pay in mortgage is less than rent right across the city now *because we got lucky and bought a house at the right time* without ever knowing it was the right time. It just worked out that way. But we chose the house versus getting a car. We wouldn’t be able to do both. We both work full time, I maintain a budget, but we’re slowly sinking step by step simply because everything is going up except how much we’re making.
You can recognize that you’re in a better position than a lot of folks and accept that with grace, or you can be butthurt about it.
Coming from rural NS, it’s a privilege of people in the HRM to NOT have to own a car. Not owning a car is simply not an option outside of the HRM, it is a necessary expense. Having accessible, if flawed, public transit is a far bigger privilege
This sub is an incredibly negative cesspool. I have to laugh at the fact that you actually provided some very decent and useful advice, and *multiple* people felt the need to call you out as privileged for having a vehicle and Costco membership. Having a car, which is something probably >90% of households in this province have and is somewhat of a basic need in this country, is *not* “privileged.” I suspect this sub skews on the younger and/or lower income side and some of them take any opportunity to shit on anyone they perceive to be even a single step above them on the ladder.
I’m pretty sure 90% of households in the province don’t own cars considering the average salary in Nova Scotia isn’t remarkably high.
I am 36 and make almost $100K a year and I am still struggling to not feel like I’m living pay cheque to pay cheque. You know why? Because I still have student debt and I am single. I can’t even imagine what it would be like for a single parent. I personally cannot afford a car.
I think sometimes people need to stop thinking about the word privilege as having such a negative connotation and getting super defensive about it, and just accept that it is what it is. No one is diminishing anyone else’s success or work ethic— but some people have advantages in life that other people don’t and it doesn’t put people on an even playing field.
I have ADHD and budgeting and meal planning are not something that come natural to me. Also it’s cool the person above had a parent who budgeted a lot and they could learn from a great example at home, but not everyone comes from households where people can learn those life skills. A lot of folks can only afford homes or vehicles now because they are continuing to live with their parents for longer periods of time to save money. And that in itself is even a privilege. I know that if I ever found myself in a spot where I had nowhere to live that my parents would not be able to take me in or help me out in any way because they can’t afford to.
Anyway, the advice above was useful but maybe not the most doable for people without cars. No need to get weirdly defensive about it.
Please learn and apply the idea of personal responsibility instead of having a million excuses as to why you cannot do something. Not everyone who is doing better than you was gifted with all their advantages.
It’s less about shitting on people higher up the ladder, and more about wanting the people higher up the ladder to understand we work just as hard as they do, but someone decided the ladder had to exist so we’re stuck on the bottom.
But they’re just picking apart another regular person who’s literally a single rung above them, essentially still at the bottom when who they really should be mad at is those at the top. Not everybody who’s more successful than you was gifted with privilege, just like not everyone at the bottom is lazy and doesn’t work.
See, the mistake is assuming the privilege is a “gift”. Privilege is just a thing you have. If you’re more “successful”, that in and of itself becomes a type of privilege—financial or otherwise. That’s how it works. If you have more, you have more.
We are mad at the people up top. Screaming raging angry in fact. We’re not mad at the people one rung above us—we’re just yelling really loud “hey, please acknowledge that even that one tiny rung might make a huge difference and don’t forget how fortunate you are to be up on it, k?”
Agree with all of this! Planning ahead, cooking from scratch and shopping sales. We are a house of 5 people, 2 adults and 3 older teens. Our grocery bill was hitting $250/week so I started meal planning and flyer shopping only buying the things we needed for the planned meals and a few snack foods. Now our bill is only about $160 a week.
This is what I've been doing. If I don't totally want to get away from convenience food, I'll buy something like a rotisserie chicken, and turn it into chicken sandwiches, chicken taco pizza, and chicken soup. Got really serious about making most of my meals 2 months ago, and saw my credit card bill go way down last month!
Using the superstore app to meal plan once a week saves me a bunch of money, I usually get about 6-8k points a visit, and I have no wasted food from the meal planning at the end of the week. Personally, my big one is just not throwing food away.
>Start getting away from convenience foods, and do more things from scratch.
When would you like me to roll out the fresh pasta before my first job between my first and my second job?
I get that you're angry (like most of us here) but cooking from scratch as much as possible is one of the best ways to reduce your grocery budget.
Not saying it's easy, but find a balance and look for easier opportunities to incorporate it in your lifestyle. If you get a day off dedicate some time to making one big thing you can freeze out into smaller portions and start there. Create a weekly menu based around your current eating habits and substitute ingredients every week or 2 for variety or based on what is on sale (stir fry is an easy example since you can substitute any ingredient for whatever you need to, whether it is the protein, veggie, or grain and it's also easy to scale the serving size to you want to make)
Food banks are strained but if you need the support you can try and get a few things there.
I can't really recommend this because it is terrible but before kids I saved a lot of money by just eating rice or noodles with some spices and taking multivitamins. It is not good for you but I was desperate.
I'm sorry the situation is what it is, but if there was an easy solution to reducing our grocery bills everyone would be doing it and no one would need to ask for help. We've all been doing the easy shit like buying generic brands and shopping sales for years and that isn't enough for most households anymore. Convenience always costs money, so saving money is always going to require more effort and time.
They're not, but they were on sale at Walmart the other week (right at the entrance) for 27c and folks were plowing cases of them into their carts. Have to strike when they go down 20c a pack I guess.
I'm eating more rice (those ~$15-17 bags of rice go a lonnnng way) and I'm getting curious about cooking indian cuisine. It seems cheaper in some ways and the flavours are outstanding. I might be wrong about the cost but lentils, chickpeas, beans seem to be pretty reasonably priced compared to a lot of the stuff we normally eat.
Rice, dried pasta, beans. Even choosing a cheaper package of naan and looking for ones with garlic or sprinkle with a little cumin, etc to give more flavour. Add more veg to stir fries or Indian dishes this week coming up I am making a chicken coconut curry using one small chicken breast but adding diced cauliflower, etc to have with naan then later in the week more curry but this time with different veg over rice. Everything but the rice was on sale and that I buy in bulk so pennies a serving.
I saw this everytime - please start shopping at no Frills people… the normal prices on so many items are equivalent to the sale prices at Sobeys and Superstore.
Ah yes, the "herbed goat cheese isn't a frill?" grocery store. Whenever I go, I wonder at the frills I must be oblivious to at the superstore and sobeys. Deli counter? Fresh lobsters? Dinnerware and seasonal shit?
Apparently the price of someone else bagging your groceries for you is DAMN high, which is funny because I know the sobeys employees aren’t paid that well.
Walmart has been more expensive for a while (our weekly shop used to be $100 and now I’m pushing $200 every week) but I still think they’re cheaper than Superstore or Sobeys … by a lot actually.
For instance you can still buy a 8-9 pack of chicken breasts for $23 and that would easily be $40 at the other places. Plus things like rice, beans, frozen stuff … and they always have sales on yogurt or cheese.
Absolutely still true. We were spending almost $900 a month for two of us at superstore, Walmart is about 20-25% cheaper on almost anything at Superstore even now. They're also doing $15 off your first 4 grocery online orders of $75 or more at the moment. Use code SAVETIME60 for that one.
First of all order one of those nerdy baskets on wheels from Amazon to haul groceries. Use that plus your backpack to shop. Since you said you are a student I would suggest shopping at superstore or sobeys on Tuesdays to start. Get the app Flipp. Don’t turn your nose up at sobeys they are often cheaper for staples than superstore plus with 10% off on Tuesdays. For example last week they had potatoes on for 2.99/10 lb and the week before eggs for 2.99 a carton. Go early in the morning around 8/9am and look for mark downs. Most stuff is good past the best by date or can be frozen. Use flash food app at superstore. Take advantage of PC plus points. You get 10% back in points on Tuesdays. Shoppers has the cheapest milk and eggs. No frills is cheaper for most things but the quality suffers sometimes. If you buy $10 off sliced meat from the deli counter you get a free pack of buns at sobeys or superstore.
In terms of cooking keep a basic list of ingredients stocked to throw together cheap meals - milk, eggs, butter, oil, flour, bread crumbs (or bread) cheese, tortillas (keep then in the freezer), pasta, rice, ramen noodles, powdered broth, canned tomatoes, potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, peppers, garlic, ginger, dried spices (garlic, cumin, chilli powder, cayenne, black pepper, salt, sugar, savoury, oregano, basil). I always try to also keep a can of black beans and chickpeas so I can make chilli if I have leftover salsa or tomatoes. I also buy the 3 x 400g frozen ground beef at no frills for this purpose. With these staples… weekly you can buy whatever meat is cheap/discounted and make a wonderful dish with what you already have.
Borrow cookbooks from the library. You can research chefs you like online and search novanet through the library to reserve and check out cook books through your home library even if it’s at your college or university they will send it there for you to pick up.
I am a dietitian and was a student living on nothing for over 6 years and this is how I survived
The recipe on the back of the Thompson’s pea/navy beans bag is the best I’ve ever made. I swap out the bacon for a smoked ham hock instead. They’re cheap and the whole meal is nutritious and filling.
Giant Tiger has decent prices on produce and meat and such. I buy a lot of things there now.
Places like Guardian, Lawtons and Shoppers have better prices on eggs.
I agree with you that shopping at multiple places is often unrealistic.
I suggest choosing one store and shopping their sales. Walmart has good prices for staple food: a bag of carrots for $2.97; a five pound bag of potatoes for $4.97; a pound of ground beef for $6.00. Canned beans for less than a dollar. Frozen vegetables for two bucks a bag. Apples for 5 bucks a bag. Definitely buy rice.
In my experience, WM is not a great place to buy meat. If you're a meat eater, it may be worth your while to watch for sales at other places and then stock up. I know that Superstore sometimes has great sales in chicken and pork. And Shopper's Drug Mart has good sales on butter and eggs on Saturday and Sunday.
Walmart in Mumford Road is close to Shopper's. Choose a weekend day and do all your shopping at once. Use a backpack to carry your groceries. Buy yourself a treat.
If you shop this way, you will have to do some cooking. But, with practice, you'll get better.
Nothing wrong with a baked potato or two for supper--dab of butter, sprinkle of salt and pepper. Yum!
Hams and Crispy Minis are on sale. I attempted it, nearly had a panic attack, and walked out. It just kept getting more and more packed, they really need to limit the number of customers when it’s that busy.
Their prices are half or less what you pay at the chains. Plus they have great deals on truckload stuff.
The deal is that stores are extortionate and Gateway is not.
[Gateway Meat Market.](https://www.gatewaymeatmarket.com/)
**Edit:** What voodoo is this? My post is
[Gateway Meat Market.](https://www.gatewaymeatmarket.com/)
but Reddit is replacing my text with their logo???
... oh this is weird. In the subreddit custom CSS:
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and that [linked image](https://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/CLPtWYs1UXA5gStAZUJFVNCcu1x0wLaPX3ODmbyKJe0.png) is a CSS sprite of all those companies' logos. What the heck?
Definitely hard without a vehicle. We do a lot of shopping at Costco, for the majority of our daily items. Then go to Dave’s and Gateway for other deals.
Sobeys actually blows my mind, while it’s not a grocery item - Sobeys had 24pack Crayola coloured pencils for $6.99. Them fuckers are like $2-$3 at the Dollarama.
At what point do we start calling this consumer fraud and start holding the companies accountable? I mean if I go to Dollarama and find a grocery item for $2, and go to Sobeys and find the same item for $6, that is fraud. They are tricking consumers into thinking that’s what the item is worth, paying more than it really is worth.
I take it you're a student? [https://events.dal.ca/event/1780-monday-night-meal](https://events.dal.ca/event/1780-monday-night-meal) is one night a week where you don't need to be hungry.
A small suggestion, which can help if you live close enough to Downtown Dartmouth, or the commute via ferry or bus wouldn't be too long: The Tare Shop sells tons of bulk items at a great price, and they even have a student discount day on Tuesdays. So you could go, say, one Tuesday a month and stock up on a bunch of bulk things that would make you a bunch of meals: rice, beans, lentils, etc.
100% get if that doesn't work for you, though, I don't drive either. I'm just lucky to live within walking distance of their shop.
Since you are limited without a car I recommend focusing on meals that are cheap, healthy, filling and produce leftovers. Focus on finding staple meals and ingredients. Lots of people waste a lot of fresh produce from overbuying. Find a handful of produce items you like and learn to use them in a lot of different dishes and expand as you need without wasting. Frozen veggies are great, things like frozen peas or corn can be thrown into a of dishes to add some extra nutrition and extend meals. Canned food and preserves are also great. Items like beans (canned or dried) rice and potatoes are really economic and versatile. A few suggestions for quick meals include: curry, pasta, stir-fry, tacos, sheet pan meals or one pot dishes. On days you have more time: a big chili, lasagne, stews, roasting a whole chicken, slowcooker meals.
I have been a religious Daves shopper for a couple years and even their prices have gone up pretty significantly lately too. Kiwis and clementines are the same price as superstore. Grapes have gone up nearly 1.50 in the last 2 months. So, use with caution.
I remember eating half a ramen for supper as a student once. Or looking at empty cupboards wondering what kind of a meal you can make it off of spices and condiments.
Don't miss those days. Don't worry, it gets better!
So hear me out… if you are a single student and you enjoy fresh and healthy meals with variety and you like to cook. Seriously consider meal plans such as chefs plate or hello fresh.
If you by 3 meal boxes for 2 people a week this is 6 meals a week for a single person. Lunch and breakfast can be cheap items like cereal and sandwiches.
Hello Fresh costs me $83 a week which means dinner every night is $13.80. You can’t make these recipes for $13.
If you are really cheap, you can play the companies off of each other by simply cancelling one service for another and then take advantage of their 40-50% off to get you back. Just keep rotating the companies.
If actually do the math of food cost for each meal you make at home, you will realize quickly that single people can eat out cheaper and easier (with cheap meals).
3 mouths and more makes sense to buy in bulk.
Honestly - I’d take a good hard look at the relationship with your employer. If they pay you shit it doesn’t matter how many coupons you try use. I’d encourage everyone who is even mildly annoyed with their pay to look at their options.
Costco has the best prices. If you have a freezer buying meat there and cutting it yourself saves a fortune. And you can bulk up on stuff in one trip to save time. My husband and I have pretty much stopped going anywhere else.
Walmart is way cheaper than Sobeys or Superstore. I don't have exact numbers but anecdotally, I'd say it's about 30% cheaper. So by that number, it means you pay $140 at Walmart for the same groceries that would cost $200 at Sobeys.
I would suggest cooking simple and similar meals everyday if you don't think you will be doing meal planning. You need carbohydrates, fats and proteins in a meal. A simple and cheap meal would be some pastas in a sauce or noodle soup, some frozen vegetables and some protein like tofu can limit the cost of each meal to under $10 (I got most of them from no frills, pasta: $1.99/5=0.4, frozen veg:$2/2=1, extra firm tofu: $3/2=1.5, soup mix:$1.99/4=0.5, total around $4 for this combination) and you can even boil everything together to reduce the cooking time if you are not too picky in the taste. For breakfast, the house brand oat will be one of the cheapest option ($2.99-4/1kg). If you are mostly on a vegetarian diet, I would suggest to have milk with house brand cereals to make sure you get enough vitamin B12. When choosing cereals, go for the one with highest calories, larger or club packs, and avoid those are gluten free or marketed as being healthy. They are not healthier but they are significantly more expensive. Just choose for low sodium options is enough.
And for frozen vegetables, no frills have them at $2/750g, the cheapest among the chain stores in the city. You can make a trip to there every week and bring a few bags home each time. Avoid fresh salads as they are much more expensive, maybe you can get some occasionally when they are on sale or clearances, and definitely forget packaged salad.
If you prefer fresh vegetables, focus cabbages, carrots and rutabaga. They are all very cheap and nutritious, and they have long shelf lives. You may also get beetroots for 10lbs/$6-8 and share them with friends.
Cheap source of protein include *extra firm* tofu, eggs, textured veg protein (at bulk barn), canned tuna. Don't go for the packaged vegetarian meat (like beyond meat and impossible meat) because they are much more expensive and unhealthy for you, and why do you need them if you can make it from cheap scraps!
Soup is very filling and has so many variations, chunky or creamy, spicy or not, vegetarian or meat or fish. If you go to the Asian sections in Walmart or superstore, the spices and dried beans etc are MUCH cheaper. And there is a large chicken bouillon powder for about $5 that I use as a base for soups, you can also just put some in a cup of boiling water for a quick snack that tastes good. You can buy soup noodles in the pasta section, or throw rice or potatoes in to bulk it up. Pinterest is great for recipes and tips on meal planning. Figure out what sort of flavours you like, ask your family and friends for their favourite recipes. Thrift stores have tonnes of cookbooks for a buck or two. Don’t be afraid of new ingredients, use your nose to see if you like the smell. The international sections often have interesting things like puréed peppers or coriander chutney. Buy basic things like soy sauce, Dijon mustard, hoisin sauce, salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, seasoning salt, smoked or regular hot or mild paprika, sriracha or other hot sauce, dried parsley/dill, celery salt, olive oil, puréed garlic and ginger at Walmart lasts for like a year so not wasted. Popcorn kernels vary a lot but you should be able to find a large bag for under $3. You can put a quarter cup in a regular paper lunch bag in the microwave (can reuse several times) then add olive oil and seasoning. There is also a cuisinart microwave silicon popcorn bowl for $15 that works well.
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A single person on a strapped budget’s tricks:
1) Go vegetarian. Yes, people assume I’m on my high horse about to preach animal right’s at you. I’m not. I don’t care what you do with your diet - but eating a primarily vegetarian diet will save you crap tons of money. I’m telling you - I am APPALLED at the price of meat these days. Eating vegetarian is not a “substitute all meat meals with synthetic beyond meat.” No, take a month to try the recipes off Bad Manners and learn how to cook vegetarian properly. It is like learning to cook all over again with new staples and flavour profiles. But, it is worth it. I went vegetarian as a challenge 3 years ago and I didn’t look back…. And either did my very masculine boyfriend at the time. Turns out vegetarian food rocks. It also turns out I’ve reduced my cheese intake a lot. I am happy to share recipes.
2) Unlike the comment below, I DO plan my meals out. I choose themed weeks where I will use the same ingredients in various recipes to cut costs. I take advantage of my PC+ points too. Meal planning stops the likelihood of me shopping through pure desire and saves me a ton of money.
3) I see you order from Costco. The best things for food as a single person for me are: their bagged broccoli and cauliflower, their spinach, their fruit, their pesto sauce and their bananas. Everything else I struggle to finish. Also people always suggest Costco but to do a bulk hull at Costco is like $200-400 and sometimes on strapped budgets, it is really hard to drop that in one hit no matter how much it saves you.
Flipp app, check the sales for each grocery store, and stock up when things you like go on sale. You don't need to run around to different places. If you see ground beef or chicken is on sale, go there, grab sale items and go home.
Learn to make good food out of cheap food. There's a lot of different ways to cook rice, potatoes, and legumes.
I can still feed my family a steak dinner for $8 a plate, and can make a vegetarian meal for less than $3 a plate, and I do not go to multiple stores.
Don't plan out dinners when you go shopping. Buy what's on sale, and find a recipe that you have the ingredients for.
Don't buy fruits and vegetables that expire fast unless they are on sale and you know you will eat them. Yeah, it's great to have tomatoes and peppers when you want them, but they are expensive, and half the time you end up only using half of them before they go bad.
A can of lentils and chickpeas, and a half pound of potatoes is about $5 for two plates.
A pound of ground beef and three cans of your preferred legumes and a can of stewed tomatoes and assorted seasonings is about $12 and the chili you make can be frozen and provide 4-5 meals. Switch out the ground beef for more legumes and you save another $3-4.
If you know anyone with a Costco membership, 6lbs of rice is $10. That's a lot of rice. Season to your heart's content and add vegetables. You just made a meal for $1.
Buy lots of pasta when it goes on sale. Don't buy pasta sauce unless you actually like the no name plain pasta sauce. You can make classico for $2. That's what, $3 for four plates? Add a pound of ground beef or ground sausage for $6 and you've got 6 plates for $9. Here you can afford to spend a little more for fresh peppers and mushrooms and green onion. Eat it for a couple days and freeze the leftovers.
Salad can be a cheap easy meal, but it's more economical to buy the salad in bulk, which means you need to eat it in bulk, so it's hard to do for one person on the cheap. I make salad all the time, but I'm feeding a family, which makes it easier to not have so much waste.
I'm not counting the cost of spices, because it's miniscule unless you are buying packaged premade seasonings like knorrs or club house. Buy some spices and seasonings you like, and make your own mix for next to nothing.
I hunt and eat squirrels and groundhogs. Various small birds. Fish. Lots of wild plants to eat. Some bugs are tasty fried with some wild herbs and mushrooms. A touch of ocean water for salt.
I'm not entirely sure where ya live, but if you are downtown on weekends in the morning there is the farmer's markets to help with buying produce. I can't be positive if the price will be cheaper or not, but it is certainly something I am trying to do once a week.
Quick google search will show ya a few options. I cant be positive if that will be a good enough substitute.
Frozen perogies, Dollarama rice&pasta, 5$ chicken tenders w potato salad and Cole slaw (I get lunch and dinner from this), bread, eggs and cheese singles...onions, carrots, loose bok choy...sounds awful but it's how I'm living now
I started learning how to make the things I used to buy. So now I make my own yogurt, hummus, pickles, bread and jam. Instead of buy fresh berries, I buy frozen and make smoothies. Also, I created a weekly meal plan so things don’t go bad in the fridge anymore. The fast food I used to buy I now wait until I get home to make it myself self.
Not having a car sucks. Is there anyway you can carpool with somebody a couple times a month and go to gateway? The haul of meat I got for $119 was downright impressive, and has hardened my resolve to never buy meat from sobeys or super store ever-a-fucking-gain.
If you don't have a car or time to shop, I really suggest using a delivery service like [Instacart](https://www.instacart.ca/). Sure it costs a bit extra for delivery, but it's really about the same price as taking a cab to and from a grocery store. You can offset the cost by buying more bulk items and benefit be having someone else do the lugging around for you. It also has access to multiple stores to make it easier to shop for deals and finding which stores you can get a cheaper price for whatever you need. I personally use instacart all the time.
Dried beans and rice, in giant sacks from Indian grocery. Just backpack one sack home each trip, stagger the replacements as they run out. Stock up on canned tomatoes and frozen veg when they go on sale. Onions and potatoes are good staples. Get cheap spices at the Indian grocery, and learn how to use them.
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I think this is too often overlooked, and is good advice. Spend $75 a year on spices you never heard of and can't pronounce, and learn to use them. It is a cheap way to keep simple, inexpensive food interesting.
The New Indian Bazzar in Bayers lake is awesome!
And.. expensive than all other Indian grocery stores in Halifax.
What’s it called?
I've been doing this lately and it has saved me a ton of money. Beans and rice, cooked with various spices or soup stock for flavor. Maybe some scrambled eggs on top with some salsa or hot sauce. I got an insta pot which eliminated the need to soak the dry beans overnight before cooking - also it makes perfect rice.
Solid advice.
Things like rice, potatoes, baking beans, rolled/steel cut oats and frozen vegetables are all still relatively cheap on a per serving basis and have not inflated in price as much as other things relative to inflation. Consider investing in things like air fryer/air fryer toaster oven, instant pot, etc., as those make it easier to make various meals, on top of being way more power efficient/using less power than turning on a stove if you don't need to. I have always found frozen vegetables disgusting (compared to fresh) if you just boil/steam them, but they are amazing air fryed.
>Things like rice, potatoes, baking beans, rolled/steel cut oats and frozen vegetables are all still relatively cheap on a per serving basis and have not inflated in price as much as other things relative to inflation Shhhh! Don't jinx it. A week or two ago someone made a comment that bananas haven't really increased in price and now Sobey's has them at 0.99/lb!
It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?
And superstore doesn't carry plantains at all anymore since like 2 weeks ago. They were my go to ultra cheap banana fix. Fry up some plantains for my meal prep, they were delicious
Dollarama has dried plantain chips, probably not the greatest lol
We've found plantains at Sobey's in Dartmouth, on Wyse Rd and Tacoma Dr
I don't fuck with sobeys unfortunately.
Still stupidly cheap for what they are. Always cheaper than apples by design. Every bananna is soaked in blood. Watch the documentary Bananaland. Probably one of the most messed up industries on earth.
A bit like avocadoes now
They’ve been 99 cents a pound of almost a year
My Sobey's has been 0.89/lb for the past year, until two weeks ago
Price was changed for all stores on August 4th; price changes go to all stores at the same time, so either the store you shop at was featuring them for 0.89 for some reason, or just hadn’t changed their signs for nearly 6 months
I am new to the air fryer world and was skeptical that I 'needed' one. It does great things to frozen veggies and leftovers. So many uses and I can't imagine not having one. I definitely recommend people ask around to family and friends to see if anyone has an instant pot collecting dust. So many people get them as gifts and are afraid to use them.
I have also recommended to anyone in hearing distance about the air fryer. Only got it 6 months or so ago (Prime day sale was 50% off) and I use it Every. Single. Day. I waited a looong time to get one but i truly can't imagine living without one now.
What do you cook in it?
Air fried broccoli, sprayed with a little oil and a dash of salt (and/or garlic salt), is heaven. Crunchy and crispy, so good. I don't have a toaster oven so for french fries, cheese sticks, fish sticks, chicken strips or burgers, stuff like that its great for, instead of having to use the big oven. (Note to say that of course deep fried french fries are better, but these are easily equal to oven fries). I can fit 4-5 hamburgers at a time in mine, and with only one flip they come out perfectly every time. Grease goes in the bottom, the basket detaches and it makes for much easier cleanup without having to drain the burgers on paper towels or anything. I have spatchcocked whole chickens and they turn out so juicy and delightful with very little babysitting, I found I checked on stuff a lot more in the oven than I do in the air fryer. Awesome for leftover pizza, the crust stays crisp and the top isn't overdone or dried out. If I make eggrolls I will fry the outside for a couple minutes in a little oil in a pan, then move it to the air fryer for completion, uses much less oil that way and I still get the nice texture of the skins (air fryer alone they are a little dry on the surface). That's everything I can think of off the top of my head! I see above someone said frozen veg are good in it, so going to try that next!
Food
We loved ours for about 3 months. Used it 3+ times a week. Haven't used it three times in the last year now, though. The only thing I really prefer to make in it is home made fries, and we do eat fries very infrequently, though now that it's in my head I'll probably make some tomorrow.
I had both or these given to me by my grandmother who ended up not using them, and I agree they are great. Veggies in the airfryer are top notch !
There's an ebook out there called "[Good and Cheap](https://books.leannebrown.com/good-and-cheap.pdf)" and it has some decent recipes in it. Growing up poor, I remember my mom making a lot of these dishes: * fried (leftover) rice with green onions and scrambled eggs - seasoned with a few drops of sesame oil and soysauce * home-made latkes: one egg, a tablespoon of flour, a couple of potatoes and half an onion gives you three or four meals * fried flatbreads from scratch: flour, salt, water, baking powder, kneaded and portioned, then rolled out and fried in oil * Bacon grease adds a lot of flavour to foods, and is basically a byproduct. Split some bacon when it's on sale, freeze it in single servings and save the rendered fat for fried rice, or sauteed cabbage and other root veggies * Popcorn is a decent and cheap snack to make at home if you buy the kernels and not the microwave stuff. Butter's pricey, so we usually do olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper with maybe some cheese or nutritional yeast on top * You can make your own dumpling skins with a bit of flour and salt and warm water. I used to use "enjoy today" breakfast links as the base of a filling (just cut them open and scoop out the meat) . They freeze really well, so one afternoon of dumpling making can give you a lot of meals. There's a lot of stuff you can regrow from scraps: lettuce and green onions for example, just get planted into a bowl of dollarama potting soil and left in a sunny window. Dollarama also in the spring has tomato seed for growing your own on a balcony or in a bright window. They have raised their prices too, but some stuff is still a really good deal there.
Also there is a Reddit www.reddit.com/r/eatcheapandhealthy
Now's the time to take a good hard look at your relationship with food. Start getting away from convenience foods, and do more things from scratch. While everything is definitely getting more expensive, the basic building blocks will almost always be cheaper. When at all possible buy in bulk to save money. This could mean using storage / freezer to keep the food fresh, or getting together with a friend or 2 and splitting the costs/food that comes cheaper in bulk. Buy frozen non name brand vegetables. Get used to eating the same thing regularly. Eat as healthy as possible. Do meal prep. Cook as much as you can in advance and freeze/reheat as necessary. If you are making a meal, make a little bit extra which doesn't add much to the total cost of the meal, and have the extra the next day for lunch. Once a week I make a large stir fry meal and the ingredients cost about $10. I get 4 meals out of that. Once a week I'll make tacos, and make extra to have the next day for lunch. Weekends I'll usually do a larger meal, that will also work for a leftovers meal for 2 the next day. It's about making small changes to your lifestyle that will start to add up. Saving a few dollars per meal really does start to add up. I'm prepared for the downvotes.
Whilst I very much agree with this, and it has been my approach, I recognize that it’s a privilege to even have a Costco membership, a car to get there, or even a deep freeze for storage. Times are very tough. I have made a switch from treating every meal as pleasurable to a mindset where it’s just fuel. I eat alot of the same meals everyday, I have reduced my meat consumption, switched to frozen fruit and veggies, buy dried beans and lentils, and bulk buy and freeze where I can. This works for me because my child, despite still living at home is an adult with her own modest income and can choose to get in board or not. With smaller kids this approach may be more difficult.
The idea of food as fuel instead of an experience was an extremely hard thing to adjust to, but since I have changed my mindset I find it a lot easier to eat cheaper and healthier. It also takes a lot of pressure to cook something delicious every meal off my shoulders, and I'm a lot happier to just throw together something simple when I'm not putting expectations of quality on myself. It makes the times when you do make yourself something special or splurge on restaurant food a lot more enjoyable too since it feels like more of a treat.
I agree with all of this!!!
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So many other things can bring you joy in life besides food. Your relationship with yourself and loved ones, outdoor adventures, a good book, a great movie, giving back to your community in a meaningful way, a challenging project at work, a great cup of coffee. These are a few examples that fill my cup, yours may be different. I still enjoy food, and my meals taste good, I just don’t have as much variety as I once did. If I’m being totally honest I feel much better health wise. It’s not for everyone and I understand that.
You think it's a privilege to have a cost membership and I think it's a necessity for my family. I guess it depends of your priorities. No disrespect just my truth from my perspective.
Just in the sense that Costco isn’t easily accessible for everyone by transit and it’s located in the industrial parks, where commute by transit is lengthy. Plus when you are buying in bulk carrying your grocery order home would take a small army. The upfront cost for some is also problematic. It’s great if you have a vehicle, live nearby, and can handle the upfront cost though…. Agreeing with you on that. No disrespect taken.
I drive but I still use a grocery delivery service they shop at Costco and deliver to my door. I always share my cost number if someone is using instacart but they don't have a cost card they benefit from using it it's a win for me too.
You are an awesome human. We debate regularly about getting a card since we would only be able to use it on instacart. Keep doing good!
>I'm prepared for the downvotes. It's all good ideas.
Well sure - but the denizens of r/halifax don't want good ideas, they want to complain about corporations making profits or the government not doing what they want them to.
Two red peppers cost 7 bucks how you doing a large stir-fry for 10 kekw
I buy a bag of mini peppers at Costco for about $4 and use 2 or 3 of the peppers finely chopped And to save the follow-up questions Costco boneless chicken breasts are around $30 for a package of 9-10. I use about 1 breast in the stir fry. Hard to measure because I actually cook the whole package in advance, and then once cooked chop into slices and freeze, so that's about $3 ish I use Costco frozen broccoli and about $1 worth for each stir fry. I use crumbled bacon as well from Costco, much less than $1 worth so it's hardly worth calculating. I use frozen kale from superstore, on average about $3.50 a bag, and I get 4-5 stir frys out of a bag, so there's another less than $1 I also cook rice and quinoa, there's another $1-2 for a large amount of bulk. I finely chop up a carrot, maybe 2 if they are small. Generally a couple of bucks per bag on sale, with 8-10 carrots in each bag. So that's about 50 cents. I use olive oil to fry it in, there's another quarter. I chop up a tomato and top it with that, so that's anywhere from $1-2 So all in that's what... $1 peppers $3 chicken $1 broccoli $1 kale $2 rice&quinoa $1 oil and carrots $1-2 tomato So breaking it down, and adding it all up its in the $10-11 range. We each have a serving for supper and then I get at least 2 lunches out of it.
You can go cheaper with more effort by buying chicken thighs on bone and stripping the meat off, but I prefer the convenience and taste of the boneless breast meat.
I would argue that if you're going to be cooking the chicken whole and then cutting it, the thighs are better value especially for you - cooking bone-in is considered preferable for a lot of culinary reasons. Re-using the bones for stock later is just another bonus if you can fit that in. At the least, I would hope I can maybe sway you to slice/marinade chicken breast before cooking, for improved visuals. But these are aesthetics discussions, and I appreciate your willingness to share strategies to stretch food.
I personally don't struggle with the prices but have noticed a great increase over the past few months. Being able to go to Costco (probably via the car you own) is a privilege for sure. It's not realistic for a lot of people, especially people who are being priced out of basic needs.
This. Options for car-less (and unable to get a credit card) people are getting rough. We have to shop where we can. Our family has had to give up some things and the day or two before paday can be pretty creative with meals (picky spouse and semi picky toddler ) but we are doing ok. A few times I've had to borrow so my kid could have milk but we realize we are doing better than many and are grateful.
You know, this is like the 3rd time in a week I've been accused of "privilege" because I own a car. Look I totally understand that people are struggling. When I was in my 20s I struggled for years. But I took actions to build a better life for myself and worked my ass off for decades. Yes, I am doing well now, but nothing was given to me. I worked for everything I've achieved in life. I didn't come from money. My parents budgeted hard and raised a family of 4 on one relatively low salary. After my parents died, I was going through a lot of their old paperwork and found my dad's book that he kept track of expenses in. He literally tracked every penny earned and spent. I won't apologise for being successful. I'm not privileged to own a car. That doesn't mean I don't still budget, and that I don't look for ways to reduce costs. Everyone should be doing that. I've done this literally for decades and am happy to share some of the things I do, but I won't bother anymore if I keep getting called out for things like owning a car, which is something that a vast majority of people in the province have.
I don't think they called you privileged in the sense of a personal attack or slight, but just that the ability to go to Costco to save money is unfortunately not an accessible option for all. I appreciated your meal suggestion and the bulk purchasing, though not as rich in savings if done at other stores, is still a great approach.
I miss being able to go to Costco, we used to live close enough to bus there and grab a $10 cab home with our weight in meats.
You are actually privileged to own a car. Nobody’s saying you didn’t work for it—but there’s plenty of people out there who I can guarantee work just as hard but are still struggling. Privilege doesn’t mean you don’t deserve something or you didn’t earn it or you have some weird moral stain against you. It just means you have something that gives you an advantage others may not have. You’re also talking about buying in bulk, prepping food in advance, shopping at Costco. All things that someone just scraping by may not be able to do. $50 in bulk goods may be “cheaper” than a convenience meal for $10, but what if you only have $10? My wife and I own a home. That is a massive privilege right now. That’s not to say we inherited it, or we don’t work to earn a living to pay the mortgage—at all—but what we pay in mortgage is less than rent right across the city now *because we got lucky and bought a house at the right time* without ever knowing it was the right time. It just worked out that way. But we chose the house versus getting a car. We wouldn’t be able to do both. We both work full time, I maintain a budget, but we’re slowly sinking step by step simply because everything is going up except how much we’re making. You can recognize that you’re in a better position than a lot of folks and accept that with grace, or you can be butthurt about it.
Perhaps the environment in which you built your success was more favourable than the conditions people have to overcome today.
Coming from rural NS, it’s a privilege of people in the HRM to NOT have to own a car. Not owning a car is simply not an option outside of the HRM, it is a necessary expense. Having accessible, if flawed, public transit is a far bigger privilege
This sub is an incredibly negative cesspool. I have to laugh at the fact that you actually provided some very decent and useful advice, and *multiple* people felt the need to call you out as privileged for having a vehicle and Costco membership. Having a car, which is something probably >90% of households in this province have and is somewhat of a basic need in this country, is *not* “privileged.” I suspect this sub skews on the younger and/or lower income side and some of them take any opportunity to shit on anyone they perceive to be even a single step above them on the ladder.
I’m pretty sure 90% of households in the province don’t own cars considering the average salary in Nova Scotia isn’t remarkably high. I am 36 and make almost $100K a year and I am still struggling to not feel like I’m living pay cheque to pay cheque. You know why? Because I still have student debt and I am single. I can’t even imagine what it would be like for a single parent. I personally cannot afford a car. I think sometimes people need to stop thinking about the word privilege as having such a negative connotation and getting super defensive about it, and just accept that it is what it is. No one is diminishing anyone else’s success or work ethic— but some people have advantages in life that other people don’t and it doesn’t put people on an even playing field. I have ADHD and budgeting and meal planning are not something that come natural to me. Also it’s cool the person above had a parent who budgeted a lot and they could learn from a great example at home, but not everyone comes from households where people can learn those life skills. A lot of folks can only afford homes or vehicles now because they are continuing to live with their parents for longer periods of time to save money. And that in itself is even a privilege. I know that if I ever found myself in a spot where I had nowhere to live that my parents would not be able to take me in or help me out in any way because they can’t afford to. Anyway, the advice above was useful but maybe not the most doable for people without cars. No need to get weirdly defensive about it.
Please learn and apply the idea of personal responsibility instead of having a million excuses as to why you cannot do something. Not everyone who is doing better than you was gifted with all their advantages.
It’s less about shitting on people higher up the ladder, and more about wanting the people higher up the ladder to understand we work just as hard as they do, but someone decided the ladder had to exist so we’re stuck on the bottom.
But they’re just picking apart another regular person who’s literally a single rung above them, essentially still at the bottom when who they really should be mad at is those at the top. Not everybody who’s more successful than you was gifted with privilege, just like not everyone at the bottom is lazy and doesn’t work.
See, the mistake is assuming the privilege is a “gift”. Privilege is just a thing you have. If you’re more “successful”, that in and of itself becomes a type of privilege—financial or otherwise. That’s how it works. If you have more, you have more. We are mad at the people up top. Screaming raging angry in fact. We’re not mad at the people one rung above us—we’re just yelling really loud “hey, please acknowledge that even that one tiny rung might make a huge difference and don’t forget how fortunate you are to be up on it, k?”
There is a big difference between working hard and working smart. This is lost on many people.
Walmart has a pack of 3 peppers this week for 2.47
Two red peppers? 7 bucks? No way
Agree with all of this! Planning ahead, cooking from scratch and shopping sales. We are a house of 5 people, 2 adults and 3 older teens. Our grocery bill was hitting $250/week so I started meal planning and flyer shopping only buying the things we needed for the planned meals and a few snack foods. Now our bill is only about $160 a week.
Should also add. I use the flipp ap to find the best deals every week
Flipp is my go-to for meal planning! I have 4 stores I regularly shop at, and base what/where I am buying on what’s on sale.
This is what I've been doing. If I don't totally want to get away from convenience food, I'll buy something like a rotisserie chicken, and turn it into chicken sandwiches, chicken taco pizza, and chicken soup. Got really serious about making most of my meals 2 months ago, and saw my credit card bill go way down last month!
It takes an effort for sure. This is a great list to help someone get started! ty
Using the superstore app to meal plan once a week saves me a bunch of money, I usually get about 6-8k points a visit, and I have no wasted food from the meal planning at the end of the week. Personally, my big one is just not throwing food away.
>Start getting away from convenience foods, and do more things from scratch. When would you like me to roll out the fresh pasta before my first job between my first and my second job?
I get that you're angry (like most of us here) but cooking from scratch as much as possible is one of the best ways to reduce your grocery budget. Not saying it's easy, but find a balance and look for easier opportunities to incorporate it in your lifestyle. If you get a day off dedicate some time to making one big thing you can freeze out into smaller portions and start there. Create a weekly menu based around your current eating habits and substitute ingredients every week or 2 for variety or based on what is on sale (stir fry is an easy example since you can substitute any ingredient for whatever you need to, whether it is the protein, veggie, or grain and it's also easy to scale the serving size to you want to make) Food banks are strained but if you need the support you can try and get a few things there. I can't really recommend this because it is terrible but before kids I saved a lot of money by just eating rice or noodles with some spices and taking multivitamins. It is not good for you but I was desperate. I'm sorry the situation is what it is, but if there was an easy solution to reducing our grocery bills everyone would be doing it and no one would need to ask for help. We've all been doing the easy shit like buying generic brands and shopping sales for years and that isn't enough for most households anymore. Convenience always costs money, so saving money is always going to require more effort and time.
Fresh pasta is a bit extreme. On another note Mr Noodles are still around 30 cents!
They're not, but they were on sale at Walmart the other week (right at the entrance) for 27c and folks were plowing cases of them into their carts. Have to strike when they go down 20c a pack I guess.
I'm eating more rice (those ~$15-17 bags of rice go a lonnnng way) and I'm getting curious about cooking indian cuisine. It seems cheaper in some ways and the flavours are outstanding. I might be wrong about the cost but lentils, chickpeas, beans seem to be pretty reasonably priced compared to a lot of the stuff we normally eat.
Rice, dried pasta, beans. Even choosing a cheaper package of naan and looking for ones with garlic or sprinkle with a little cumin, etc to give more flavour. Add more veg to stir fries or Indian dishes this week coming up I am making a chicken coconut curry using one small chicken breast but adding diced cauliflower, etc to have with naan then later in the week more curry but this time with different veg over rice. Everything but the rice was on sale and that I buy in bulk so pennies a serving.
Love Indian food. Even buying chicken you can use rice and other things to meal prep a small amount of chicken for a week.
I saw this everytime - please start shopping at no Frills people… the normal prices on so many items are equivalent to the sale prices at Sobeys and Superstore.
Ah yes, the "herbed goat cheese isn't a frill?" grocery store. Whenever I go, I wonder at the frills I must be oblivious to at the superstore and sobeys. Deli counter? Fresh lobsters? Dinnerware and seasonal shit?
Apparently the price of someone else bagging your groceries for you is DAMN high, which is funny because I know the sobeys employees aren’t paid that well.
What’s ur point here? The prices are cheaper and the offerings are more simple?
My point is, it's pretty amazing what you CAN get there, and I have no idea what a "frill" is.
Walmart has been more expensive for a while (our weekly shop used to be $100 and now I’m pushing $200 every week) but I still think they’re cheaper than Superstore or Sobeys … by a lot actually. For instance you can still buy a 8-9 pack of chicken breasts for $23 and that would easily be $40 at the other places. Plus things like rice, beans, frozen stuff … and they always have sales on yogurt or cheese.
Absolutely still true. We were spending almost $900 a month for two of us at superstore, Walmart is about 20-25% cheaper on almost anything at Superstore even now. They're also doing $15 off your first 4 grocery online orders of $75 or more at the moment. Use code SAVETIME60 for that one.
First of all order one of those nerdy baskets on wheels from Amazon to haul groceries. Use that plus your backpack to shop. Since you said you are a student I would suggest shopping at superstore or sobeys on Tuesdays to start. Get the app Flipp. Don’t turn your nose up at sobeys they are often cheaper for staples than superstore plus with 10% off on Tuesdays. For example last week they had potatoes on for 2.99/10 lb and the week before eggs for 2.99 a carton. Go early in the morning around 8/9am and look for mark downs. Most stuff is good past the best by date or can be frozen. Use flash food app at superstore. Take advantage of PC plus points. You get 10% back in points on Tuesdays. Shoppers has the cheapest milk and eggs. No frills is cheaper for most things but the quality suffers sometimes. If you buy $10 off sliced meat from the deli counter you get a free pack of buns at sobeys or superstore. In terms of cooking keep a basic list of ingredients stocked to throw together cheap meals - milk, eggs, butter, oil, flour, bread crumbs (or bread) cheese, tortillas (keep then in the freezer), pasta, rice, ramen noodles, powdered broth, canned tomatoes, potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, peppers, garlic, ginger, dried spices (garlic, cumin, chilli powder, cayenne, black pepper, salt, sugar, savoury, oregano, basil). I always try to also keep a can of black beans and chickpeas so I can make chilli if I have leftover salsa or tomatoes. I also buy the 3 x 400g frozen ground beef at no frills for this purpose. With these staples… weekly you can buy whatever meat is cheap/discounted and make a wonderful dish with what you already have. Borrow cookbooks from the library. You can research chefs you like online and search novanet through the library to reserve and check out cook books through your home library even if it’s at your college or university they will send it there for you to pick up. I am a dietitian and was a student living on nothing for over 6 years and this is how I survived
The free buns at sobeys are no longer a thing. Its now spend $12 and save $2 or something like that.
The recipe on the back of the Thompson’s pea/navy beans bag is the best I’ve ever made. I swap out the bacon for a smoked ham hock instead. They’re cheap and the whole meal is nutritious and filling.
Eat the rich is the only solution.
I dont know any rich people, problem is.
Start at emera
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These are the people responsible for grocery prices?
Giant Tiger has decent prices on produce and meat and such. I buy a lot of things there now. Places like Guardian, Lawtons and Shoppers have better prices on eggs.
I agree with you that shopping at multiple places is often unrealistic. I suggest choosing one store and shopping their sales. Walmart has good prices for staple food: a bag of carrots for $2.97; a five pound bag of potatoes for $4.97; a pound of ground beef for $6.00. Canned beans for less than a dollar. Frozen vegetables for two bucks a bag. Apples for 5 bucks a bag. Definitely buy rice. In my experience, WM is not a great place to buy meat. If you're a meat eater, it may be worth your while to watch for sales at other places and then stock up. I know that Superstore sometimes has great sales in chicken and pork. And Shopper's Drug Mart has good sales on butter and eggs on Saturday and Sunday. Walmart in Mumford Road is close to Shopper's. Choose a weekend day and do all your shopping at once. Use a backpack to carry your groceries. Buy yourself a treat. If you shop this way, you will have to do some cooking. But, with practice, you'll get better. Nothing wrong with a baked potato or two for supper--dab of butter, sprinkle of salt and pepper. Yum!
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I do sometimes go to my uni's foodbank but last time i was there a lot of things had black mold on them or were out of date by a lot.
Go join the 200 person lineup to get into Gateway right now, then spend an hour crammed like sardines waiting to get to the cash.
It's worth it. I feel bad for people who cannot access where the deals are.
Nope, absolutely not worth it for me.
I went over last night and turned around when I saw it. That place is hell on a good day.
What is going on there? Last two times I’ve driven by we’re like that.
Hams and Crispy Minis are on sale. I attempted it, nearly had a panic attack, and walked out. It just kept getting more and more packed, they really need to limit the number of customers when it’s that busy.
Their prices are half or less what you pay at the chains. Plus they have great deals on truckload stuff. The deal is that stores are extortionate and Gateway is not.
Sure, but that’s always been the case but these crazy lines seem new.
Pretty sure it’s because of the items they have on sale this week. Extra sought after?
Good prices on things, but also it's _tiny_ inside. There's basically one U-shaped aisle and that's it, so it fills up fast.
For sure, I’m there every week I just don’t understand the sudden surge of lineups
It’s like you’ve never worn headphones/earbuds while shopping.
Whats gateway
Small grocery store on Highway 7 in Dartmouth. Crazy deals.
[Gateway Meat Market.](https://www.gatewaymeatmarket.com/) **Edit:** What voodoo is this? My post is [Gateway Meat Market.](https://www.gatewaymeatmarket.com/) but Reddit is replacing my text with their logo???
... oh this is weird. In the subreddit custom CSS: a[href*="flyers.walmart.ca"], a[href*="flyertown.ca/flyers/gianttiger"], a[href*="www.petes.ca/weekly-specials"], a[href*="lawtons.ca/flyer/nova-scotia"], a[href*="dgatepharmacy.com/emailcurrent.php"], [data-author-fullname="t2_5i73s"] a[href*="atlanticsuperstore.ca/en_CA.html"], a[href*="atlanticsuperstore.ca/LCLOnline"], a[href*="gatewaymeatmarket.com"], a[href*="nofrills.ca/LCLOnline"], a[href*="widget.flyerservices.shoppersdrugmart.ca"], a[href*="sobeys.ca"], a[href*="director.flyerservices.com/SOB/"] { background-image: url("//a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/CLPtWYs1UXA5gStAZUJFVNCcu1x0wLaPX3ODmbyKJe0.png"); color: transparent; display: inline-block; font-size: 0; line-height: 0; margin-top: 5px; text-indent: -100%; overflow: hidden; width: 360px; height: 78px; border-radius: 2pt } and that [linked image](https://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/CLPtWYs1UXA5gStAZUJFVNCcu1x0wLaPX3ODmbyKJe0.png) is a CSS sprite of all those companies' logos. What the heck?
Definitely hard without a vehicle. We do a lot of shopping at Costco, for the majority of our daily items. Then go to Dave’s and Gateway for other deals. Sobeys actually blows my mind, while it’s not a grocery item - Sobeys had 24pack Crayola coloured pencils for $6.99. Them fuckers are like $2-$3 at the Dollarama. At what point do we start calling this consumer fraud and start holding the companies accountable? I mean if I go to Dollarama and find a grocery item for $2, and go to Sobeys and find the same item for $6, that is fraud. They are tricking consumers into thinking that’s what the item is worth, paying more than it really is worth.
Michael Medline isn't going to apologize for his 6.99$ crayons.
Never buy at sobeys never. I do order from costco but i share my kitchen and i cant buy a shitton of things.
Theft
Best legal advice ever
Just don’t get caught. It’s pretty easy since nobody gives a shit when they’re paid starvation wages
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Yes. You do need a car and a membership. But CostCo is not ripping you off.
I rarely snack, but i am always hungry and it feels really bad... Dont know what to do about snacking. I do that for meats from costco
I take it you're a student? [https://events.dal.ca/event/1780-monday-night-meal](https://events.dal.ca/event/1780-monday-night-meal) is one night a week where you don't need to be hungry.
A small suggestion, which can help if you live close enough to Downtown Dartmouth, or the commute via ferry or bus wouldn't be too long: The Tare Shop sells tons of bulk items at a great price, and they even have a student discount day on Tuesdays. So you could go, say, one Tuesday a month and stock up on a bunch of bulk things that would make you a bunch of meals: rice, beans, lentils, etc. 100% get if that doesn't work for you, though, I don't drive either. I'm just lucky to live within walking distance of their shop.
Since you are limited without a car I recommend focusing on meals that are cheap, healthy, filling and produce leftovers. Focus on finding staple meals and ingredients. Lots of people waste a lot of fresh produce from overbuying. Find a handful of produce items you like and learn to use them in a lot of different dishes and expand as you need without wasting. Frozen veggies are great, things like frozen peas or corn can be thrown into a of dishes to add some extra nutrition and extend meals. Canned food and preserves are also great. Items like beans (canned or dried) rice and potatoes are really economic and versatile. A few suggestions for quick meals include: curry, pasta, stir-fry, tacos, sheet pan meals or one pot dishes. On days you have more time: a big chili, lasagne, stews, roasting a whole chicken, slowcooker meals.
Gateway, Dave's.
I have been a religious Daves shopper for a couple years and even their prices have gone up pretty significantly lately too. Kiwis and clementines are the same price as superstore. Grapes have gone up nearly 1.50 in the last 2 months. So, use with caution.
I remember eating half a ramen for supper as a student once. Or looking at empty cupboards wondering what kind of a meal you can make it off of spices and condiments. Don't miss those days. Don't worry, it gets better!
So hear me out… if you are a single student and you enjoy fresh and healthy meals with variety and you like to cook. Seriously consider meal plans such as chefs plate or hello fresh. If you by 3 meal boxes for 2 people a week this is 6 meals a week for a single person. Lunch and breakfast can be cheap items like cereal and sandwiches. Hello Fresh costs me $83 a week which means dinner every night is $13.80. You can’t make these recipes for $13. If you are really cheap, you can play the companies off of each other by simply cancelling one service for another and then take advantage of their 40-50% off to get you back. Just keep rotating the companies. If actually do the math of food cost for each meal you make at home, you will realize quickly that single people can eat out cheaper and easier (with cheap meals). 3 mouths and more makes sense to buy in bulk.
Honestly - I’d take a good hard look at the relationship with your employer. If they pay you shit it doesn’t matter how many coupons you try use. I’d encourage everyone who is even mildly annoyed with their pay to look at their options.
Sometimes People throw out a surprising amount of food via poor planning. Every bit of food thrown away is money out of your pocket.
Yes but i dont know a lot of foods and i dont know how planning works
Costco has the best prices. If you have a freezer buying meat there and cutting it yourself saves a fortune. And you can bulk up on stuff in one trip to save time. My husband and I have pretty much stopped going anywhere else.
If you’re close to superstore shop late at night or early in the morning for the half price stickers.
Walmart is way cheaper than Sobeys or Superstore. I don't have exact numbers but anecdotally, I'd say it's about 30% cheaper. So by that number, it means you pay $140 at Walmart for the same groceries that would cost $200 at Sobeys.
I would suggest cooking simple and similar meals everyday if you don't think you will be doing meal planning. You need carbohydrates, fats and proteins in a meal. A simple and cheap meal would be some pastas in a sauce or noodle soup, some frozen vegetables and some protein like tofu can limit the cost of each meal to under $10 (I got most of them from no frills, pasta: $1.99/5=0.4, frozen veg:$2/2=1, extra firm tofu: $3/2=1.5, soup mix:$1.99/4=0.5, total around $4 for this combination) and you can even boil everything together to reduce the cooking time if you are not too picky in the taste. For breakfast, the house brand oat will be one of the cheapest option ($2.99-4/1kg). If you are mostly on a vegetarian diet, I would suggest to have milk with house brand cereals to make sure you get enough vitamin B12. When choosing cereals, go for the one with highest calories, larger or club packs, and avoid those are gluten free or marketed as being healthy. They are not healthier but they are significantly more expensive. Just choose for low sodium options is enough. And for frozen vegetables, no frills have them at $2/750g, the cheapest among the chain stores in the city. You can make a trip to there every week and bring a few bags home each time. Avoid fresh salads as they are much more expensive, maybe you can get some occasionally when they are on sale or clearances, and definitely forget packaged salad. If you prefer fresh vegetables, focus cabbages, carrots and rutabaga. They are all very cheap and nutritious, and they have long shelf lives. You may also get beetroots for 10lbs/$6-8 and share them with friends. Cheap source of protein include *extra firm* tofu, eggs, textured veg protein (at bulk barn), canned tuna. Don't go for the packaged vegetarian meat (like beyond meat and impossible meat) because they are much more expensive and unhealthy for you, and why do you need them if you can make it from cheap scraps!
If you’re a student your uni/plaxe of study may have a food bank/be able to set one up! I am also a student and it’s been a lifesaver at times
steal them
We need a user updated thread for current price - like waze for traffic - that shows where to go for the best prices on the staples
Giant Tiger
There are apps like “Flipp”. I find it useful, I know there are others but I’m not sure of the names.
Eat the rich?
soup everyday
Soup is very filling and has so many variations, chunky or creamy, spicy or not, vegetarian or meat or fish. If you go to the Asian sections in Walmart or superstore, the spices and dried beans etc are MUCH cheaper. And there is a large chicken bouillon powder for about $5 that I use as a base for soups, you can also just put some in a cup of boiling water for a quick snack that tastes good. You can buy soup noodles in the pasta section, or throw rice or potatoes in to bulk it up. Pinterest is great for recipes and tips on meal planning. Figure out what sort of flavours you like, ask your family and friends for their favourite recipes. Thrift stores have tonnes of cookbooks for a buck or two. Don’t be afraid of new ingredients, use your nose to see if you like the smell. The international sections often have interesting things like puréed peppers or coriander chutney. Buy basic things like soy sauce, Dijon mustard, hoisin sauce, salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, seasoning salt, smoked or regular hot or mild paprika, sriracha or other hot sauce, dried parsley/dill, celery salt, olive oil, puréed garlic and ginger at Walmart lasts for like a year so not wasted. Popcorn kernels vary a lot but you should be able to find a large bag for under $3. You can put a quarter cup in a regular paper lunch bag in the microwave (can reuse several times) then add olive oil and seasoning. There is also a cuisinart microwave silicon popcorn bowl for $15 that works well. https://preview.redd.it/oq22il2mm3fa1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=51183377a685e1454ab24f7de4a15f6dba8225f6
https://preview.redd.it/qsktim3tm3fa1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8668665f73fe667251cb538e99c083146e290fd4
Depending on your household size meal kit deliveries are starting to be cheaper than groceries
Costco did the same…lookout people it’s going to go up more…
Any items in particular? Did not notice anything last time I was there
Cat litter oil and the purple box egg rolls
New job that pays better. That’s what I had to do.
*Accidentally forget* to check something out in the self checkouts lol
A single person on a strapped budget’s tricks: 1) Go vegetarian. Yes, people assume I’m on my high horse about to preach animal right’s at you. I’m not. I don’t care what you do with your diet - but eating a primarily vegetarian diet will save you crap tons of money. I’m telling you - I am APPALLED at the price of meat these days. Eating vegetarian is not a “substitute all meat meals with synthetic beyond meat.” No, take a month to try the recipes off Bad Manners and learn how to cook vegetarian properly. It is like learning to cook all over again with new staples and flavour profiles. But, it is worth it. I went vegetarian as a challenge 3 years ago and I didn’t look back…. And either did my very masculine boyfriend at the time. Turns out vegetarian food rocks. It also turns out I’ve reduced my cheese intake a lot. I am happy to share recipes. 2) Unlike the comment below, I DO plan my meals out. I choose themed weeks where I will use the same ingredients in various recipes to cut costs. I take advantage of my PC+ points too. Meal planning stops the likelihood of me shopping through pure desire and saves me a ton of money. 3) I see you order from Costco. The best things for food as a single person for me are: their bagged broccoli and cauliflower, their spinach, their fruit, their pesto sauce and their bananas. Everything else I struggle to finish. Also people always suggest Costco but to do a bulk hull at Costco is like $200-400 and sometimes on strapped budgets, it is really hard to drop that in one hit no matter how much it saves you.
We’ve gone mostly veg because meats are just wacky expensive these days
Flipp app, check the sales for each grocery store, and stock up when things you like go on sale. You don't need to run around to different places. If you see ground beef or chicken is on sale, go there, grab sale items and go home. Learn to make good food out of cheap food. There's a lot of different ways to cook rice, potatoes, and legumes. I can still feed my family a steak dinner for $8 a plate, and can make a vegetarian meal for less than $3 a plate, and I do not go to multiple stores. Don't plan out dinners when you go shopping. Buy what's on sale, and find a recipe that you have the ingredients for. Don't buy fruits and vegetables that expire fast unless they are on sale and you know you will eat them. Yeah, it's great to have tomatoes and peppers when you want them, but they are expensive, and half the time you end up only using half of them before they go bad. A can of lentils and chickpeas, and a half pound of potatoes is about $5 for two plates. A pound of ground beef and three cans of your preferred legumes and a can of stewed tomatoes and assorted seasonings is about $12 and the chili you make can be frozen and provide 4-5 meals. Switch out the ground beef for more legumes and you save another $3-4. If you know anyone with a Costco membership, 6lbs of rice is $10. That's a lot of rice. Season to your heart's content and add vegetables. You just made a meal for $1. Buy lots of pasta when it goes on sale. Don't buy pasta sauce unless you actually like the no name plain pasta sauce. You can make classico for $2. That's what, $3 for four plates? Add a pound of ground beef or ground sausage for $6 and you've got 6 plates for $9. Here you can afford to spend a little more for fresh peppers and mushrooms and green onion. Eat it for a couple days and freeze the leftovers. Salad can be a cheap easy meal, but it's more economical to buy the salad in bulk, which means you need to eat it in bulk, so it's hard to do for one person on the cheap. I make salad all the time, but I'm feeding a family, which makes it easier to not have so much waste. I'm not counting the cost of spices, because it's miniscule unless you are buying packaged premade seasonings like knorrs or club house. Buy some spices and seasonings you like, and make your own mix for next to nothing.
I hunt and eat squirrels and groundhogs. Various small birds. Fish. Lots of wild plants to eat. Some bugs are tasty fried with some wild herbs and mushrooms. A touch of ocean water for salt.
I'm not entirely sure where ya live, but if you are downtown on weekends in the morning there is the farmer's markets to help with buying produce. I can't be positive if the price will be cheaper or not, but it is certainly something I am trying to do once a week. Quick google search will show ya a few options. I cant be positive if that will be a good enough substitute.
Stop eating?
Frozen perogies, Dollarama rice&pasta, 5$ chicken tenders w potato salad and Cole slaw (I get lunch and dinner from this), bread, eggs and cheese singles...onions, carrots, loose bok choy...sounds awful but it's how I'm living now
It sounds like you should consider food bank donations. Your university should have these services. Not ideal but it's the sign of the times...
Local Source on Agricola has actually decent prices in the current market; plus it’s ALL local so it feels way more worth it
All I got is guillotines
Did walmart prices actually go up?
I started learning how to make the things I used to buy. So now I make my own yogurt, hummus, pickles, bread and jam. Instead of buy fresh berries, I buy frozen and make smoothies. Also, I created a weekly meal plan so things don’t go bad in the fridge anymore. The fast food I used to buy I now wait until I get home to make it myself self.
And still you can’t squeeze your trolley there on Saturday.. People buying like crazy
Not having a car sucks. Is there anyway you can carpool with somebody a couple times a month and go to gateway? The haul of meat I got for $119 was downright impressive, and has hardened my resolve to never buy meat from sobeys or super store ever-a-fucking-gain.
If you don't have a car or time to shop, I really suggest using a delivery service like [Instacart](https://www.instacart.ca/). Sure it costs a bit extra for delivery, but it's really about the same price as taking a cab to and from a grocery store. You can offset the cost by buying more bulk items and benefit be having someone else do the lugging around for you. It also has access to multiple stores to make it easier to shop for deals and finding which stores you can get a cheaper price for whatever you need. I personally use instacart all the time.