Thanks! You’re right about rice, beans, and potatoes. They are great budget stretchers that you can use hand in hand with store loss leader items, sales, coupons, etc. I have also found eggs to be a great budget stretcher since they often go on sale here for 99 cents a dozen. I stock up when they do and then can use them for breakfast for dinner nights, extra baking, etc.
I am still not as good at using coupons as those on the extreme coupon show, but I manage to get on average about 30% off of each grocery purchase due to coupons and store discounts.
Overall, I have managed to cut our grocery bill by 57% from our prior level buy sticking to basics, cooking most things from scratch, preparing budget conscious meals using lower cost items, and the use of discounts and coupons, etc. I was already a budget conscious shopper before all of this happened and used most of these techniques before I started, but not to the same extent that I am today.
Even with the reduction in our monthly grocery expense I have managed to increase our stores of canned goods, frozen items, and foods that keep long term like rice, dry beans, sugar, honey, salt, etc.
I have always liked rice, beans and potatos all my life and have always cooked plenty of all three. Plus, we cook way too much food for us at one time anytime we cook. It saves on utility bills, plus we like leftovers, and many things are better the second time.