I do a large shopping every 4-6 weeks, fill in every 10 days or so with produce, but I grow lettuce and cherry tomatoes hydroponically in the winter and use Green Bags, so my produce lasts weeks. I keep extra cream, which is always on sale after the holidays, frozen in small quantities, just as I described for milk. Last week, Aldi had butter for $1.19/lb, more that 1/2 off anywhere else. I have a quarter shelf in the fridge stocked with butter and won't buy it until the next sale, which will be in 3 months or so. Ditto coffee, sugar, flour, broth. A 6# bag of egg noodles lasts me nearly a year, same with other pasta and I buy 15# of Bismati rice at Sam's every 12 months or so and have to package it well to avoid bugs. 1/4 of one freezer is full of tomato sauce and one cupboard still has dehydrated tomatoes from 2009, which are still good, due to vacuum packing with a silica gel packet. I will take some and add olive oil to it and put it in fancy jam jars for gifts. We buy entire cuts of beef and pork and portion it ourselves. I grind venison 50%/50% with sale beef for hamburger, adding excess beef fat from the portioning of top sirloin, at $1/pound total cost. Chicken is inexpensive if you stock up on bulk sales or get 2-for-the price-of-one whole roasters. Ditto turkey at certain times of the year. We stock gasoline w/Stabil for the generator and use it in the cars when prices are high. As prices go down, even temporarily, we refill the empty cans.
I use ammonia or vinegar or baking soda for cleaning. For $3 I purchased removable caps with the silicone seal for Swiffer containers and fill them with whatever I need, as needed. I found my favorite wood floor cleaner available in a concentrate for the same price as the diluted type and have used it for 3 months and have half left. I do use liquid hand soap, but it is often on sale in gallon containers and I probably purchase it once a year.
All this takes about as much time/space/money as we are willing to invest. I understand the allure of FREE, but, so far, everything is still manageable for us and it takes organization and planning ahead, as it is. I mark every can and package w/the date/weight. We don't eat huge portions anymore and things last a long time, it seems. Heck, we don't even take the local papers, although I will sometimes print out online coupons if I see something I can use.
Those Green Bags really work? I was wondering about those.
We stock up with the large quantities of flours, rices, oatmeal, grains, etc. in January/February when the temperatures outside are below freezing, AND we leave the items in the garage for a week so that all bugs and their eggs are destroyed - they we RE-package it for use during the rest of the year.