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8 Strategies for Saving Money at Farmers Markets

April 1 is the traditional opening day of the season for many farmers markets across the country and with an exceptionally long and cold winter, it couldn’t come fast enough!

While shopping at local markets can be a lot of fun and a great way to try new foods, the cost of local and specialty produce can add up, if we’re not careful. Here are eight strategies for saving at the farmers market this season:

1. Shop With a Flexible List

Rule #1 of shopping is always – make a list! Before you leave the house, look at your meal plan for the next 7-10 days and make a detailed shopping list that includes the name of each item you need and how much you need (quantity). When it comes to produce, I also recommend including what meal the item is planned for, incase you find something at a better price that can easily be substituted, such as yellow squash for zucchini in summer squash pasta, or nectarines for peaches in oatmeal breakfast crumble.

2. Know What’s in Season

In-season produce is usually more affordable, better tasting and contains more nutrients compared to produce that is not in season and is shipped from a far away location. Know what’s in season before you shop using this cool page from the Natural Resources Defense Council. It allows you to see what’s in-season by state, by month and by food!

Another option is Lovacore, a free app that shows you what’s in season and what local markets carry what you’re looking for. For those who prefer the paper/pencil method, download a free in-season printable guide.

3. Visit Several Markets in Your Area

I live in a relatively small town, but there are 11 farmers markets within a 20-mile radius and there is an enormous variety at each one – including the prices. For example, I visited two farmers markets on the same day. One market had conventional apples for $1.69 per pound and were not labeled as local. Another had local, organic apples for just $1.50 per pound – a difference of almost 20¢/lb in favor of the locally-grown organic variety!

Get to know the markets in your area and be able to distinguish which is the most affordable, which is best for organic items, and which offers those unique produce items that are fun to experiment with. Plan your trips to each market according to your shopping list and your budget. If you’re new to shopping at farmers markets, or need help finding some in your area, visit LocalHarvest.org or EatWellGuide.org.

4. Know What’s on Sale in Stores

I love supporting local farms, but sometimes shopping at grocery stores is the better option for a frugal grocery budget. Before you leave for the market, compare your shopping list with the sales circulars from your local stores and write down the sale prices. Then when you’re at the market, compare the stand prices against the prices you wrote down. But remember, choosing the lowest price isn’t always the best, since it might mean poorer quality and making an extra trip, thereby costing more in the long run in gas and time.

5. Walk the Entire Market First, Before Making Any Purchases

Not only do prices vary from market to market, but they can vary greatly from stand to stand within the same market! For example, the Swiss chard you see above on the left is $2 per bunch, while the Swiss chard on the right is $1.50 per bunch – and they’re both organic!

So before you buy anything, walk the entire market from end to end, noting the prices of the items on your shopping list along the way. Then make a second pass through and choose the stands that have the best price for the best quality.

6. Shop the Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen

These lists, published yearly by the EWG, are a super helpful yes/no guide to buying organic. Grapefruit, avocados and onions rank very low in terms of pesticide residue, so you can save money by opting not to buy these organic. This will allow you to better afford to purchase organic for items that do rank high with pesticide residue, like strawberries, peaches and celery.

On the other hand, don’t write off vendors who aren’t certified organic. The process for becoming certified is very time-consuming and expensive and many small family farms just can’t afford to be certified, although they still follow organic practices. Ask if they use chemical pesticides or fertilizers or more natural methods instead, and what those methods are.

[Note from Kelly: I personally recommend getting to know your local farmers by discussing with them their farming methods and visiting their farms. Case in point, Tanaka Farms in Southern CA, is not organic certified but does follow organic practices and has farm tour visits and explains how they grow their produce. So to Tiffany’s point, yes, for some family farms it truly is an expensive process to be certified. But of course, we do have to be wary of those who would be dishonest. That’s why getting to know your local farmers is so important.]

7. Buy “Seconds”

The farmers are looking to sell their foods, even if they’re ugly or misshapen. These are often bagged and priced separately, or in a bin of their own, and marked down accordingly. Take advantage of the deal if those items are on your list.

I’ve also seen venders sort through their boxes in the middle of the day, removing the foods that aren’t in tip-top shape. If you see someone doing this, ask them if they’re selling those less-than-stellar items and how much they’re selling them for. You might want to have a price in mind as well, incase they’ve never been asked for their ugly foods before.

8. Bargain When Buying in Bulk

Farmers work very hard to provide quality food, and the prices reflect this. It can be insulting to attempt to bargain with them over one or two heads of lettuce that were just cut from the field within the past 24-48 hours. However, if you’re willing to buy 5-10lbs of something, they’re often willing to shave off a few dollars. Just be sure you have a plan for all the produce so it doesn’t go to waste!

BONUS! Other tips to make your experience at the farmers market a good one:

Bring Cash – smaller bills and change if possible
Bring Your Own Bag – consider bringing back glass jars, egg crates and pallet/flat containers if you previously bought them from the vendors. Some offer cash back for these items.
Arrive Early for Best Selection
Shop 30 Minutes Before Close for Possible Deals – Many people swear by this, but not all farmers discount their items just so they don’t have to bring them home! It’s worth a try once or twice though, to either rule the possibility out, or to have a new savings strategy!

What are your favorite tips for saving money at farmers markets? Leave them in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!

Note from Kelly: Don’t miss all of the other great budgeting posts that Tiffany has shared here. Simply click here and keep scrolling through to see her many helpful posts on how to save money on your food budget.

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The Secret to a Healthy Grocery Budget: Keeping Your Receipts

By Kelly · 17 Comments

I’ve been told that I have the memory of an elephant. Several years ago, a co-worker came up to me and said, “Hey Tiff, do you remember that guy who took that thing into that room in that building? I need his file. Do you know where it is?”

Somehow, my brain knew exactly what she was talking about.

One decade, two pregnancies and a couple of elementary-aged kids later, it’s a good day if I remember to close the lid to the washing machine before walking away – and I have a sneaky feeling I’m not alone!

Keeping a good record of your spending (rather than relying on your memory) is just one reason why it’s so important to keep your receipts from grocery shopping. Yes, I’m talking about those little pesky pieces of paper that seem to clutter your purse, or make messy piles on the counter. Believe it or not, you need to keep them! But before we get into that, let’s back up for just a moment.

Why are we talking about grocery receipts in the first place?!

One of the top questions I’m asked is how to live a real food lifestyle on a tight budget? Since this is a personal mission of mine, I’ve written an entire series on creating a grocery budget. And one of my first recommendations is to set a food budget and start keeping your grocery receipts.

Do you have a grocery budget? Do you need help creating one?
Whether you do or don’t, I encourage you to go through this series and download the 5 pages worth of free printables that are sent to you when you subscribe to the Crumbs weekly newsletter. They’re designed to walk you through the first couple steps, so they’re perfect for beginners and seasoned budgeters alike!

What’s the point of keeping these bits of paper? Glad you asked. Here are just a few reasons …

6 Reasons Why Keeping Your Grocery Receipts Are the Secret to a Healthy Grocery Budget:

1. We’re called to be good stewards of our finances.

Regardless of our financial situation, we should all be doing the best we can with our provisions. That means knowing what you spend, how you spend it and being accountable for it.

2. You won’t remember what you bought, where you bought it and how much you paid… every time.

Keeping the receipts is the only 100% way to know how much you’re paying for your food. Our memories won’t always be like an elephant’s, and when you’re trying to seek out the best deal on food, you need to know what you’ve paid in the past and where you can get that price again – or in some cases, where you won’t get a good deal.

3. Money stops “disappearing” and spending becomes purposeful.

Often times money mysteriously “disappears” at the grocery store, but keeping the receipts holds you accountable for every dollar you spend. In turn, each transaction becomes a purposeful decision. You’ll be absolutely sure where your money went and why.

4. In order to work within a budget, you need to know where you stand.

Setting a monthly allowance for groceries is essentially setting a goal. How will you know if you’re on track to meet your goal if you’re not keeping track? Consider the person who sets a weight-loss goal. Don’t they weigh themselves regularly to know whether or not they’re headed in the right direction? Consider your grocery receipts as your weekly “weigh-in” to help keep you on track with staying on budget.

5. Knowing where you stand is empowering.

When you are fully aware that you only have $20 left in your budget BEFORE you even set foot in the store, the line between “want” versus “need” becomes much clearer, so you’ll make better decisions while shopping and be less likely to overspend.

6. Knowing where you stand is a powerful motivator to keep going.

It’s not always easy to eat leftovers for the third night in a row, or to devise a dinner plan based solely on a partially empty pantry, but it becomes a bit easier when you know there’s a purpose: To help you toward meeting your grocery budget goal.

So, now that we understand why keeping our receipts is the secret to a healthy grocery budget, it’s important to learn how to maximize this opportunity to better track our spending!

3 Ways Track Your Spending

1. Use an online spending tracker or app.

I had quite a bit of fun looking for apps to track spending, but ultimately the one that best suits you will depend on your computer or phone and your personal preferences. Try searching for “budget app iPhone/Android/Windows” (using just one of the three of course) and you’ll find plenty of options. Be sure to read the pros and cons to ensure it will do what you want it to, and don’t spend a lot of money on it – if any at all!

2. Use a spreadsheet.

For those who like to track on their computers, you can’t get any more free or basic than a spreadsheet. Keep it really simple at first with just four or five columns, one for each week of the month, and enter the amount of money you spent for each trip underneath. You can add more columns for more data later once you’ve got a good grip on your total monthly spending.

3. Use a pen and paper.

This is my personal preferred method. For as long as I’ve had a grocery budget, I’ve written down what I spent and where I spent it in my planner, on the day I went shopping. Since I always carry my planner with me, it was easy to write it in, and easy to refer to later when planning another shopping trip.

It doesn’t matter which of these methods you choose, but remember they will only work if you actually use them. This means you will have to take a few minutes to enter your totals into your phone or computer or write them down. Yes, it’s something else “to do,” but it’s the only way to properly get your grocery budget under control!

What do you do with the receipts once you’re done tracking your spending?

First, I recommend adding up your receipts at the end of each week so that you know where you stand for the next week, or even the rest of the month. Once you’ve done this, keep all the receipts for the month in one envelope and keep the envelope in an easy access location.

At the end of the month, use the receipts to continue the grocery budget process. When you’re done, paperclip the entire month together and move it into a second envelope. This envelope doesn’t need to be front and center like the first, but it’s helpful to have receipts from previous months available for reference as you’re going through the budgeting process.

Receipts from previous months can get recycled after about six months, or whatever you decide works best for you.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this … Do you currently keep your grocery receipts? What are your favorite ways to track your spending in order to keep your food budget in check?

Note from Kelly: Don’t miss all of the other great budgeting posts that Tiffany has shared here. Simply click here and keep scrolling through to see her many helpful posts on how to save money on your food budget.

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How Much is Your Time Worth?

By Kelly · 22 Comments

It’s a new year – and a new opportunity to get that food budget back on track! To help us, my friend Tiffany from Don’t Waste the Crumbs will be sharing a few frugal budgeting ideas with us each month. Take it away, Tiffany …

One of the first lessons I learned early on in my real food journey was that making food from scratch can save a lot of money.

Our grocery budget in The Crumbs Household is $330/month for two adults and two children (ages 6 and 4), so I immediately employed every make-it-from-scratch technique I could possibly find to keep us from overspending.

I started making yogurt, beans and bread. Then salsa, protein bars and tortillas. Recently pie crusts, almond milk and even sweetened condensed milk.

And while we were definitely saving money making some things from scratch, there was another lesson to be learned: Making food from scratch can take a lot of time.

Time is always in short supply and high demand. In fact, it took me a long time to learn the hard way that my time is NOT always best spent making every single food we eat from scratch.

There are instances where it’s more cost- and time-efficient to buy healthy real food ready-made from the market. Yet on the other hand, there are other instances where it’s just as easy to make the same food at home, possibly for less.

In either case, it’s important for every family to find their own unique balance between time and money when it comes to real food. Not just so you can save money, but so you can save your sanity too! After all, being in the kitchen 24-7 isn’t healthy for you or your family who loves you.

Let me share an example with you … Kelly and I were talking on the phone last week about this whole concept of time vs. savings, and she shared with me that many times she doesn’t make regular tomato salsa from scratch. If she needs just a cup or so for one meal, it just doesn’t make sense for her (money- or time-wise) to buy all of the ingredients and make a big batch from scratch, only to use a small portion as a condiment for one meal. Instead, in this case, she buys only as much salsa as she needs from her local market and makes sure only whole foods are listed in the ingredients.

On the other hand, I always make salsa from scratch. My taco-loving family consumes salsa like it’s water, so a single 32oz batch is gone in just a few days. I know first hand that for my family, it doesn’t make sense for me to buy it.

Here’s another time vs. savings example. For the first half of 2103, you could always count on me buying two whole organic chickens and cutting them into chicken pieces myself. Doing this provided enough chicken for eight meals plus stock for four soup nights – that’s 12 nights of meals every month for a total of $18.

Then one day while strolling through Costco, I found pre-packaged, organic chicken drumsticks that cost less per pound than what I was paying for the whole chickens! I thought I had hit the mother load. Not only could I save money, but I could save time by not having to chop up whole chickens (and cleaning up my mess afterward)!

Each Costco package had three individually wrapped sections and each section contained five drumsticks. One package yielded enough meat for three meals plus stock for two soup nights – that’s five nights of meals for only $11.

But do you see where my logic went wrong?

I thought the drumsticks were a better deal because they cost less per pound and didn’t require any of my time to prepare. But I was wrong.

I would have to buy two of the pre-packaged drumsticks, plus another two pounds of meat, to end up with the same amount of meat if I had simply bought two whole chickens. In terms of money, it would cost another $9.

From start to finish, it takes me 15 minutes to rinse, peel off the skin and carve a whole chicken into parts. If I’m doing two chickens at once, it’s a total of 20 minutes.

Are those 20 minutes worth $9? For me, the answer is Yes!

So here’s my proposal to you: As you evolve in your real food journey, consider how much your time is worth, and spend both wisely.

How Do You Do This?

1. Consider What You Eat Often

One of the great advantages of making food from scratch is that you can ensure that only healthy real food ingredients are used, thereby greatly increasing your nutritional intake. So when considering what to make from scratch, it’s important to think about the types of food you eat most often and start with investing the bulk of your time in making these foods, if it makes sense to do so.

It comes down to figuring out not only what made-from-scratch foods will save you the most money, but which ones will also have a higher likelihood of increasing your nutritional intake. Then it’s a matter of balancing your time, since for most of us it’s simply not possible to make everything from scratch.

For example, you’ll hear often among real foodies that making your own cultured foods like yogurt saves a lot of money. And it absolutely does! That is, if you eat a lot of it. However, if your family only eats a cup of yogurt each week, it simply doesn’t make sense for you to spend the time, money or energy in buying a starter culture, milk and then culturing your own. Just buy the single cup, make sure it’s full fat without added sweeteners or fillers.

Beans are another great example. They’re a nutrition powerhouse and average only 30¢ when you make them from scratch compared to $1 or more per can. Saving 70¢ on each can of beans can really add up over time, but only if your family eats them!

It’s important to mention that sometimes it can cost more to make a food from scratch, but if the nutritional benefits far outweigh the cost involved, it may be worth the investment of extra time and money. But again, only you can decide the right balance between nutritional advantages, time saving and money savings.

2. Consider What You Don’t Eat Often

For foods you eat infrequently, it simply may not make sense to spend time creating these foods from scratch, particularly if healthy whole food options are readily available.

As a personal example … breadcrumbs are REALLY easy to make from scratch, but I don’t make them anymore because of one valid point: My family doesn’t eat them. So regardless of how simple they are to make, it’s still too much time, effort and energy to make my own. Instead, if I happen to need them, I simply buy a container (without any artificial ingredients) and call it done.

3. Start Small

There’s no greater deterrent than trying to do too much at one time. Choose one item that you eat often and try to make it from scratch. Pull out the calculator and see if you saved anything by making it at home versus buying it at the store:

pre-cut and packaged fruit or veggies vs. buying whole fruits & vegetables and slicing them yourself
pre-washed bagged lettuce vs. whole heads and washing, cutting at home
homemade bread vs. packaged or fresh bakery breads
homemade snacks such as crackers and energy bars vs. less healthy packaged versions
homemade condiments such as salad dressings and mayo vs. less healthy packaged versions
homemade cultured foods such as yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, lactoferments, etc vs more expensive store bought versions
soaking and cooking your own beans vs. more expensive canned versions

Again, consider the nutritional benefits, financial savings and the time required to make the foods you eat from scratch and decide for yourself if it’s worth it. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. Every situation and family is different, so you’ll have to ask yourself – How much is your time worth? And do what’s best for YOUR family!

We’d love to hear your thoughts … What are real foods do you invest your time in making from scratch? And which do you opt to purchase already made instead?

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