Try practicing a little more food prep to reduce your grocery bill. It is amazing how a few minutes a day could save hundreds a week.
We are so blessed and lucky to live in a place where food is easily had for the average person. Not only can we, say, buy chicken for dinner, but we can choose from several types and even have someone pre cut it, pre season it, pre cook it, and even pre arrange it for us, if we like.
I have to confess that there have been times when I have taken advantage of easy prep foods, such as roasted chicken strips to add to a salad or frozen vegetables with sauce when making dinner was the last thing on my mind, but I try to make that the exception rather than the rule (with coupons some of that stuff can actually be pretty cheap, but only rarely).
Generally, the more food prep you do, the more money you will save. For example, you will get about three times the amount of celery if you just wash it and cut off the greens, versus buying the pre cut celery sticks. A simple prep.
Today in the local grocery store flyer, we admired a stuffed turkey breast that included bread stuffing plus cranberries and apples. The cost was $5.99 a pound, or a little more than $18 for the one breast.
In comparison, an entire turkey with two breasts, plus wings, legs, bones for stock (and skin and giblets) costs just $.99 a pound on sale. You could get an entire 18 pound turkey that would provide many meals for that same cost.
In both cases, you still have to cook the meal, so the stuffed breast wasn’t saving anything there.
Now to be fair, you’ll still have to add a couple of dollars for apples, cranberries and stuffing (save even more if you make your own stuffing), but that would whip together pretty quickly. I think you see how a little prep can save you a lot.