Fruit and vegetable preparation is not a task most people want to tackle as soon as they get back from grocery shopping. I know after we have spent over an hour crossing off the items on our grocery list and getting them home we want to kick back with a cup of tea and relax.
Life gets busy for most people especially with kids (if you have any), work, extra-curricular activities, school and a myriad of other commitments. The list never seems to end and for some, cooking isn’t a task they want to spend much time doing especially when it’s hot and sticky outside.
We eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and do our best never to throw food away. Meal planning has helped us to create a weekly menu and we do try to stick to it the best we can. Sometimes things come up and we aren’t able to create the meal we intended to but we do eat up what we have on hand before it goes off. Another simple way that we have avoided any food waste is to prep our fruits and vegetables as soon as we get home from grocery shopping.
What we have done lately is wash, peel and chop fruits and vegetables that we will eat over the course of a few days. We don’t have a specific peeling procedure that we follow. A knife and peeler is about all we use to prep our food which you can find at any dollar store and in most home appliance sections. There are also sophisticated vegetable peeling machines you can buy but peeling vegetables by hand is all we do. It has been so convenient for us to open the refrigerator and to grab a tub of pre-cut carrots and celery to have as a snack with a piece of cheese. It also helps to keep our refrigerator clean, mainly the fruit and produce drawers.
We even take the time cleaning grapes and taking them off the vine so they are ready to eat, no effort required. Fruits such as apples, pears and plums we simply clean, dry and store. This process of food prep has allowed us to reach for healthier snacks and we find that we are eating more fruits and vegetables simply because they are ready to eat.
Cleaning fruit as soon as we get home has always been important to us especially since you don’t know who has handled the product or where it has been. We also take a few minutes to put towards cleaning vegetables before we put them away in the refrigerator especially the vegetables that we don’t prep in advance such as onions. Having the fruits and vegetables already cleaned also means you don’t have to worry if your child forgets and wants a quick snack.
Do you clean and prep your fruits and vegetables when you get home from grocery shopping?
If you missed grocery game posts for this month just click on the links below and post your shops in the comment section. Each week I will add the previous weeks Grocery Game post below. Next week I will post the winner of the June Grocery Game Challenge in the first post for July.
Free Money Saving Downloads were lists that were created to get us on track towards reaching our goals. Get organized with a freezer inventory, meal plan, shopping list, price comparison list and much more!
Click, Save and Print. It’s that easy~ Also look back on previous grocery game posts for loads of grocery shopping tips and information.
How To Start Saving Money On Groceries In Canada?
How Much Should My Grocery Budget Be?
Rendezvous Account: $65.38 This is money saved if there is any leftover at the end of a month of grocery shopping for a date night for the wife and I.
Weekly Overview: We spent more than we should have this month because we needed to pick up vegetables, milk and cheese. While in the grocery store we noticed some great deals on meat again and of course we broke our rule of get in and get out.
I know we need more will-power.
We were low on meat so the past 2 weeks we’ve picked up great deals on sausages and chicken so now we are stocked up again. We will have to make up for it again in July but thankfully it wasn’t too much. The good point is that we used $30 in PC points for our No Frills order which helped saved us a bit. As you can see the grocery budget cycle similar to a debt cycle can continue over and over unless we can get it under control. It’s not easy, but it’s possible.
Had we not overspent on groceries in May we would have come in under budget this month with money to spare for the rendezvous account which looks very lonely. Hopefully we can work on adding to that account some time soon.
Grocery Game Challenge RULES….. Read the rules first and if you have any questions email me or comment on this post with your question and someone will answer you as soon as possible.
Do I have to be Canadian to post my Grocery Shop? No, you don’t have to be Canadian to post your shops only to win a monthly prize. We have a few players from around the world.
When does the Grocery Game Close each month? The Grocery Game Challenge Closes at Midnight of the last Sunday of the last post for the month. You can post your shops all month-long.
Does Your Grocery Budget Include Health and Beauty and Laundry? Yes our Grocery Budget includes such items as shampoo, conditioner, laundry soap, fabric softener, dish soap etc. We don’t mind stockpiling items that won’t be affected by expiry dates or have long expiry dates but not so much food any more. It’s just one way to help cut your budget to save money.
Where can I find Canadian Coupons? Here are your latest Coupon Match-ups of the week including Checkout 51 from 25 Newspaper Inserts around Canada compliments of Save Big Live Better that you can use to help you save money in the Grocery Game Challenge.
How Do I Know what stores accept coupons? You can find all your store coupon policies here. If you are not sure it’s always best to call the store and ask.
How Do I Grocery Shop?– I can tell you about grocery shopping and what we do in terms of shopping to save money and how it works for us. There are no wrong or right answers, just smart choices.
Over time you will gradually learn where you should and shouldn’t go in the grocery store or at least how to say no, I’m on a budget I don’t need to buy this or that. You may also substitute items in order to stick to your budget to make it work. Nobody is perfect, heck we struggle with this part of our budget like many people do and this is why the grocery game challenge was created.
If you have just joined The Grocery Game Challenge get ready to dive deep into your grocery budget and learn just where you are spending, how much you are spending and what you are saving. You’ve made a wise decision.
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Our weekly budget is $100 a week making this month $400.
We went to costco to look at fruit and veggie and came out spending twenty bucks!! Oh well it was all good deals and only need to buy a few of these items only once a year.
not bad shop there considering that only the mushrooms weren’t on sale that week.
So we were over this month and I may have used my treat money to pay for stuff but not 100% sure so we will just take it as over in general.
Hopefully our July is an on budget month as it is always a little bit hard for me to do when the kids come here and visit. But we have lots of snacks and cereals that should help keep us within budget. The only thing I see derailing us is a wedding and some day road trips but will try to keep things down!
OK you have been warned this will not be pretty. What with picking a load of strawberries for jam and going into No Frills for the first time to shop with hubby in tow. I need to go there again when it’s not so busy (note to self…late Friday afternoon not a good time!!!) and go by myself. We did find deals and I price matched my tea to FB but there were things I didn’t find due to the crowds and bought in town for more…..
Total over/under for week- Over$165.44!!!!
So there’s the bad news… mind you there was some stocking up, and I am good for strawberry jam for the year…I hope. I was a little disappointed in NF as it was so busy when we went in and hard to find things, plus I had hubby I was trying to watch out for. The ground turkey, pork tenderloin and the lean ground beef were all good prices so I did stock up there a little. The things at Jackson’s were the first day of the sale, sort of, the ad didn’t start until the next day but the prices were in the computer, coffee was too good to pass up and the pop was a nice price but I’m out of my nice coupons there. However Canada Dry is running a contest again where you register a pin from inside the box, I sent one in and won a free 2l bottle… coupon to be mailed… Yes we do go through the gatorade in the summer as well as the powerade as the older boy drinks it… cider in the winter and this in the hot weather as well as some of the pop and coffee. Such is life… these are constants so I get what I can on sale as much as possible…I’m good for tea now for a while… that was a nice price for that size box. Raisin bread is classed as a snack here so I get that a lot as well. I couldn’t get the cheaper brand at Foodland as there wasn’t any…. I’m trying to get more variety in the menu if I can get some one to eat it and to do it as cheaply as I can…. I’ll be getting a container of ice cream this week as we have a birthday on Thursday… the younger boy will be 25…. I’m trying to wrap my head around that fact!!!! That and the grandson will be 4 in Sept and starting JK!!!!!!!!! I will keep trying to get a handle on this!!!
Here we are at the end of my first month of participating. I am very happy with how I did this month and plan to continue to play along (albeit will miss the first bit of July due to holidays but will catch up once we are home).
Well, there is my first month. Very happy with what I spent. While my budget was $560, I was aiming to spend between $400 and $500 which I was able to do. This week I had to stock up on a couple of things – Fruit Snacks for my son which I typically wouldn’t buy unless they were on sale, but we were in the home stretch for school and I needed something to throw in his lunches as a treat. The Freezer bags at Costco were on a very good sale, so I was glad to stock up on those (works out to $2.83 for 40 bags). I had to buy some juice this week as we had gone through what we had and my husband uses it to mix with his green shakes in the am.
I shop for 2 adults and a 2 ½ year old boy. Our budget is $90/week or $360 for this month and includes laundry, health/beauty, etc.
•Total to Carry over Next Month: I do not carry over but I will deduct $50.50 from what I have to spend in July.
•Weekly overview: I still need to work way harder on not spending especially now that the summer is here and I am laid off. I really have a fear of missing a deal and not having what I want/need in my stockpile when I want/need it. I got some great deals this week! I tried to stock up on a few things I know I’ll need this summer while I’m babysitting. Babysitting my cousin’s daughter will bring in some extra money this summer but it will also cost me a little more to have an extra one around to feed and entertain as well as utilities since we will be home. I will try to do as many free activities as I can this summer. If I had waited until Tuesday to shop I would have come under budget for the month lol.
Thanks Mr CBB. I will definitely be trying harder this month but at the same time it will be more difficult being home all day with more mouths to feed. Yes Target allows you to stack manufacturers coupons with Target coupons, that’s how I did so well there.
Totally over-budget this month. For 32.78, so not as bad as i thought, but still over! I will try hard to stick to my shopping list next month.
We prep the fruit and vegetables here as well. And the multi-slow cooker gal is pleased to say I have a couple of juicers as well.
I have the “quick clean” inexpensive one and although it juices just fine… it leaves a lot of pulp and requires small quantities for the feed so more chopping is required. I do like using this one though if I am going to be baking as I just add the pulp to the mix. Veggies are great for a meat or nut loaf, I like to add the fruit pulps to my quick breads. No waste required.
I have my Jack LaLanne’s Ultimate Power Juicer that has a larger chute and leaves less pulp but the time I don’t spend chopping everything small, I do spend on cleaning the beast. If I am doing a lot of juicing though… this is the one I reach for.
If you love your tomatoes Mr CBB, juice them once & you’ll never go back to store bought after you have fresh juiced! It adds so much flavor to your cooking!!! And, you REALLY want to juice your watermelon for homemade popsicles. You can do “juice only” but I mix the juice with yogurt for a creamsicle type consistency.
You will use a juicer a lot IF it has pride of place on your kitchen counter.
A friend of ours told us that she juices and adds kale, cucumber, blueberries, flax and chia seeds and it’s a great breakfast. I might try that and she uses a bullet of sorts.
Weekly Overview: Not too bad this week. I know by friends at Publix miss me since I haven’t been there in a month. I have to go where the prices are right, so it is what it is. I managed to shop once last week, but I still went over budget. My plan is to go once next week and so far it’s looking good. My goal is to start looking for sales a coupons to get more bank for my buck.
Well done Dr. Sheba and great attitude to have. Yes, they might miss you but you have to go where the prices are affordable for your grocery budget. I can already see how you are progressing since you started posting your shops. I can’t wait to see how July works out for you!!
What juicer do you use Julia?
budget. Next month starts at -$40 if I take out $200 for a normal month for July.
whatever price. Multiplied by 1,000 customers that is a ton of money.
Total Grocery Budget for the Month:$274.20 in June.
Total Over/Under spend this shop: $19.44 under if you divide June by 4 weeks.
I am not a fan of anchovies but I like them in Caesar salad. on pizza, no way. too salty!
I guess they go good with cesar. My potato donuts you can make them plain but add an anchovie in the middle before deep frying the dough.
It has been working for us so we will keep doing it.
I definitely try to, because if I don’t there is a high likelihood that it will go to waste in my fridge. Speaking of which I just got home from Detroit and my fridge is empty! Can’t wait to start eating “my food” again!
Better go load up on those blueberries. I’m glad you enjoyed your trip to Detroit.
We recently signed up for a local farmer co-op, so we are getting better at cleaning and prepping our produce because it is coming straight from the farm. It will also give us a chance to expand a bit in receiving produce that we wouldn’t normally buy. It is a little pricey, but at least we are helping out the local economy.
Very good Greg. I suppose when you get it right from the farm you would have to wash it right away. I believe supporting the local farmers is very important.
One way that we help to eliminate our food wast is to juice vegetables and fruits. If we have leftovers or it is going to go bad soon, we simply juice it and drink it. It is a great way to get a ton of extra nutrients besides!
We talked about getting a juicer but we didn’t know how much we would use it and if it was a wise investment for us. How often do you use your juicer and is there a better juicer to buy?
I’m glad to see that you are viewing the overage this month the exact same way I am. I keep saying, but, but, but haha! We didn’t even know how many points we had until we asked. When she said enough for $30 we said, “we’d take it” lol. If not our bill would have been higher so we are going to stick with it for July. We need to get back on the boat!
It would have been had we stuck to the budget BUT we will do better. The shop did have it’s positives with the savings though. Thanks Donna.
I love how you get all your rain checks the way you do. I think I might do a small GGC post about rain checks one week to see how many people do in fact get them and remember to use them. It is a smart way to shop the way you do.
Mary you are like a squirrel collecting nuts.You sure collect those bargains. Great job !!!
This certainly wasn’t much of a shopping week but we did get some nice deals to round out what we already had on hand. I had to dig into my hiding spot cash to get $3.00 towards hubby’s English muffin stockpile and $1.33 for a dozen eggs though.
I expect to need some fresh vegetables and milk next week so next week should have a larger shopping session to report.
The eggs are a 3 day sale price… that’s why I both bought the eggs and also got a rain check for 3 more dozen. They had good expiry dates too! Eggs are just such an inexpensive protein… even if you throw out the yolks like I do when I am baking & use twice as many egg whites.
I thought the eggs were an amazing price. I would have stocked up because you are right they are an inexpensive protein. We try to boil up eggs each week if we can to have them ready to munch on.
I always like that bread border run of yours. You always seem to score some great deals.
Weekly Overview: Went and stocked up on bread this week. This will last quite some time and can’t pass up a deal of a $1.00 each instead of spending over $2.00 per loaf. Again I went over budget but not by much which I’m very happy about. I know that things will only get better as time goes on. In a couple of months, my house becomes an empty nest for a school year. Will have to see how the budget changes with that. Starting this week, I’m going to working 7 days a week so that will be bring it’s own challenges of making sure that groceries are bought and not much eating out happens.
I wish I could say that I haven’t thrown any food away but I try and keep it to a minimum. Fruit in my house basically never goes bad, my daughter eats it too fast. Case in point, I bought grapes on Sunday and it’s now Tuesday with no grapes in the house. Because of that, I don’t buy as much fruit as I probably should.
That’s great that she eats lots of fruit. We do our best to only buy what will get eaten. There’s no point in wasting food if we don’t have to. Good for you Dee!
One thing my wife and I do to avoid waste is to turn old fruit into fruit smoothies. And, of course, when the bananas start to turn black we make them into delicious banana bread.
We do the same with our fruits even though we try to only buy what we will eat. We love banana bread but if we don’t have time to make it we peel the banana and store it in the freezer until we’re ready to make it. You and your wife sound pretty kitchen savvy when it comes to keeping costs down from waste in your kitchen. Cheers Terry!
My brother in law likes frozen grapes & frozen bananas sliced. He prefers them this way.
Interesting, I never thought to freeze grapes.