Category: Food

Although I write fairly regularly about saving money on groceries, believe it or not I’ve never been to an Aldi supermarket before, that bastion of discount grocery shopping! When I saw a coupon in the newspaper for a local one opening up, I knew the time was right to check it out and report back here on what I thought.

Saving on Groceries

Even though there are lots of other ways we can save money, our food budget is still one of the largest parts of our annual expenses. After all, we all need to eat! Food accounts for about 8% for the typical American family’s budget. Therefore it’s only natural we would seek out lower grocery prices without sacrificing on quality.Continue reading“Grocery Savings: Is Aldi Supermarket the Store for You?”

Good news. The world keeps right on spinning. That may be it when it comes to the good news! I see some very cloudy skies ahead in some of the most important categories of our everyday lives. We might have to brace for what I’m going to call the “reign storm” that may start to darken some of the financial skies beginning right now, about 3 weeks ahead of Inauguration Day 2017.

For one, we just saw the interest rate hike that has brought mortgage rates to a level higher than it has been in the past several years, and there is more of that coming in 2017. I’m used to the ever changing things that are just part of life and that I have to adjust to every year. I said used to, but I’m not always happy about them. I guess that’s because I can actually remember the days, for example, when oh, I wasn’t put on hold for 45 minutes when I called someplace on the phone and then was told that “my call is very important and that they are experiencing a high volume of calls today”, just coincidently anytime I call!Continue reading“A Sweet Year Ahead Could Cost You a Fortune!”

For the first time since 1960 grocery prices have dropped for 9 consecutive months here in the U.S. So far this year, overall prices have declined by slightly over 2% against last year’s prices and in some key categories they dropped even more dramatically according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is certainly good news and an unexpected “gift” after years of steadily inflated food prices that were at a zenith as recently as a year ago. Things such as shorter supplies, avian flu, and viruses affected beef, pork, and chicken supplies around the country. Grain prices were hurt by severe weather and drought which also made prices jump.

Continue reading“Are Grocery Prices Actually Going Down?”

Well it’s that happy time again. Back to school means that vacation time is over and the kids will be getting back to a routine of “early to bed, early to rise” once again.  But besides the shopping and stocking up on those classroom needs, it’s also the time to begin the very important (and sometimes very expensive) task of prepping for their daily school lunches and snacks that they’re going to need all year long.

Now I know that the easy way out might be to just buy the school lunches everyday, but those choices may not be the ones your kids really want despite their “value”. Bought lunches probably won’t include most of their favorites and someplace in the back of my mind I remember when president Jimmy Carter decided that ketchup counted as a vegetable (or was it a fruit?) on the nutrition chart.  That kind of scares me.  If you want to be in more control of what your kids are eating, and make them just a bit more likely to eat a good lunch yet still save money, consider some of these good ideas for the coming school year!Continue reading“Lunchtime is Saving Money Time on School Lunches”

We’ve all probably used the phrase “money doesn’t grow on trees” a time or two haven’t we? But as funny as it may seem, it kind of does in the form of food we shop for! Even though you can find food growing all around you on farms and orchards, even in densely populated places like New Jersey where we live, rarely if ever do we run out to go pick our own fruits and veggies or cut corn cobs or gather eggs from the chicken coops (or if you do, kudos to you for living off the land the way our ancestors did for thousands of years).

We live in an age that provides the convenience of the neighborhood supermarket, or supercenter as many are frequently called. It’s been this way for quite a while now, really booming with the development and growth of suburbia after World War II and has continued to grow and develop and morph into the supermarkets that we know and use every week today to feed our families.Continue reading“The Best Supermarkets in America Today and Why”