Groceries WTF

Damn !! I'm in charge of shopping for the first time in a while and I spent $160 without even buying Meat or Poultry! I need to know the art of coupon clipping or something because that is terrible for just 2 people for a few days.
I'm already baking my own bread and fo sho I'll be doing a veggie garden next Spring and the Deer that sometimes come in the back yard will soon begin to look very tasty.
Anyone got any tips to save a few sheckels?
Make your shopping online - most of the time the prices there are lower than in-store.
 
I don't think prices in Canada changed at all. And if they did it must had been so small I don't even notice.

Wait for deals and you can still get chicken and pork chops for $2-3/lb just like before COVID. You can still get apples and oranges for $1/lb on sale and bananas have been $0.59/lb at most stores for probably at least 10 years.

The only thing I've noticed that has gone up a lot is pop the past 5-10 years. A case of 12 or 24 has doubled vs way back.

Just shop on deal and save money. Only buy at regular price if you're desperate for something that week or it's the kind of product that never seems to go on sale ever. A lot of Costco Kirkland products never go on sale it seems.

Buying at reg price is a suckers game because most things in life go on sale. You'd never buy a car or TV at sticker price right? Of course not. You probably wait for deals or wheel and deal to scrape back as much as your can. Apply that same logic to buying stuff every week. Wait for deals.

Not in my experience. Lots of stuff I buy has doubled in price.

My groceries never used to top $100 a trip, I could sometimes spend $60 for a fair haul. Now I find I'm pushing $200 and come away feeling like I bought fuck all.

Before Covid the yogurt I'd buy was $8.99 a tub, it's now $16. Fucking baked beans were about $1.29, now they're $3.29 a tin.

Bags of salad went from about $3 to $6.

I've found I have to be much more on the ball to spot deals
 
I've started going direct to source for my food here in the UK

Farmers shop for Eggs, Unpasteurised cheese and millk and cream, meat and bond broths for stock. Was able to buy about 5kg of minced beef, 12 eggs, big block of Poacher cheese and some spices for just £45 the other day. Once per month stocks the freezer full.

As for fruit and veg, we grow a lot of it ourselves in the greenhouse, I have onions, garlic, potatoes tomatoes and lots of herbs most of the year round. When we run out I just buy from a local greengrocer. The supermarkets are scamming you hard.

I've been looking into growing my own mushrooms for a while. I got some high quality oak and pine logs to build a stack for Shiitake, chestnut and white button shrooms in the plot at the end of our yard but they need darkness. I dug a good chunk of the ground up and also planted some hedges and shrubs that will grow along the edge and provide a good bit of shade next year so they will have a dark and protected area to grow nicely,

I tried that and found it to be incredibly expensive. The quality is amazing, sure, but price is double.

My dog eats turkey breast as his main protein. I found that Costco was about ~$22 a kilo, Safeway ~$19 and the local turkey farm direct ~$46 (which was about 4 years back when I last checked so could be higher now).
 
H-Mart definitely a bit higher now in prices cause of tarriffs. My pocari sweat and dumplings T_T

No kidding. I am a regular and now I try to get most from cheaper stuff, and only get the specific Korean/Chinese/Japanese ones that I can't get in local groceries...
Some of the stuff is just way overpriced though. Especially at "H mart Fresh" place - smaller H mart locations.

Also these days - H mart or ordinary groceries or whatnot - I tend to get just the items on sales. I have decent sized pantry and storage/freezer - so I buy them bulk on sale and store.
 
Not in my experience. Lots of stuff I buy has doubled in price.

My groceries never used to top $100 a trip, I could sometimes spend $60 for a fair haul. Now I find I'm pushing $200 and come away feeling like I bought fuck all.

Before Covid the yogurt I'd buy was $8.99 a tub, it's now $16. Fucking baked beans were about $1.29, now they're $3.29 a tin.

Bags of salad went from about $3 to $6.

I've found I have to be much more on the ball to spot deals
Ya, fair enough. Depends what each person buys. I dont buy a lot of fancy stuff. A lot of the basics I buy like fruits, chicken, pork chops, bread etc.... have prices no different IMO. Heck, in tomorrow's new set of weekly deals (as per Flipp) chicken and pork chops are $1.99/lb again at No Frills. No different than before or after covid when inflation propped up. Just about every week, one of the main stores will sells apples or oranges for 99 cent/lb and bananas never changed. Still 59 cents/lb for like 15 years. Food Basics has apples for 68 cents/lb starting tomorrow.

Just use Flipp if it applies to your area (online or on app) and skim the prices. Then just do a main run or two to a couple different stores near each other, stock up on the deals and call it a day. I never buy stuff at regular price unless desperate for something, it's a product that never seems to go on deal, or it's something that costs small. So waiting to save 50 cents on something isnt worth the hassle to just buy it now.

Not sure what kind of yogurt you buy, but must be some fancy high end kind. I always buy one of two kinds. The Liberte Greek 500g tubs which are always on sale for $3 somewhere (or 3/$9 at Walmart), or Costco where there's good chance one of their giant 24 packs of various branded yogurt is on sale that week for $7. At 100g per cup, that's 2.4L worth of yogurt (the same qty as buying 4 600g tubs or about 3 750g tubs). Prices seem the same for years. I've never paid more than $7-8 for yogurt ever and that's when it's a giant Costco pack.
 
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Ya, fair enough. Depends what each person buys. I dont buy a lot of fancy stuff. A lot of the basics I buy like fruits, chicken, pork chops, bread etc.... have prices no different IMO. Heck, in tomorrow's new set of weekly deals (as per Flipp) chicken and pork chops are $1.99/lb again at No Frills. No different than before or after covid when inflation propped up. Just about every week, one of the main stores will sells apples or oranges for 99 cent/lb and banana never changed. Still 59 cents/lb for like 15 years. Food Basics has apples for 68 cents/lb starting tomorrow.

Just use Flipp if it applies to your area (online or or on app) and skim the prices. Then just do a main run or two to a couple different stores near each other, stock up and call it a day.

Not sure what kind of yogurt you buy, but must be some fancy high end kind. I always buy one of two kinds. The Liberte Greek 500g tubs which are always on sale for $3 somewhere (or 3/$9 at Walmart), or Costco where there's good chance one of their giant 24 packs of various branded yogurt is on sale that week for $7. At 100g per cup, that's 2.4L worth of yogurt. Prices seem the same for years. I've never paid more than $7-8 for yogurt ever and that's when it's a giant Costco pack.
I live in rural Ontario and prices are half of what you'd pay in Toronto. I used to spend 500$ a month pre-pandemic in Montréal and now it's 300$ a month and some months I don't even buy any due to leftovers.
 
I live in rural Ontario and prices are half of what you'd pay in Toronto. I used to spend 500$ a month pre-pandemic in Montréal and now it's 300$ a month and some months I don't even buy any due to leftovers.
Just curious, in rural areas what are utility bills and ISP/cellphone plan prices like? Are they cheaper too? I always thought it's a bit cheaper by $10-20/mth.

I assume that because when I'd check sub plan prices on sites, you see the default promo price. But then you type in your address or postal code to get your actual area price and suddenly it jumps. But those cheaper promoted examples are for places in smaller towns.
 
Just curious, in rural areas what are utility bills and ISP/cellphone plan prices like? Are they cheaper too? I always thought it's a bit cheaper by $10-20/mth.

I assume that because when I'd check sub plan prices on sites, you see the default promo price. But then you type in your address or postal code to get your actual area price and suddenly it jumps. But those cheaper promoted examples are for places in smaller towns.
I pay 60$ a month for natural gas mostly for heating and BBQ and 72$ a month for electricity. That has been the case for the 6 years I've been here, no increase so far with equal payment plan.

Cellphone I have Fizz for 26$ a month for 4GB data CAN/US. Internet is lots more expensive though with Eastlink at 96$ a month for 1Gb/s unlimited though Bell put Fibe service here last year. Property taxes here are 1475$ a year for my house and I have one of the most expensive places in town. It costs me less to live here in 2025 dollars than my condo in Ottawa in 2000 dollars, crazy.
 
I pay 60$ a month for natural gas mostly for heating and BBQ and 72$ a month for electricity. That has been the case for the 6 years I've been here, no increase so far with equal payment plan.

Cellphone I have Fizz for 26$ a month for 4GB data CAN/US. Internet is lots more expensive though with Eastlink at 96$ a month for 1Gb/s unlimited though Bell put Fibe service here last year. Property taxes here are 1475$ a year for my house and I have one of the most expensive places in town. It costs me less to live here in 2025 dollars than my condo in Ottawa in 2000 dollars, crazy.
I'm on Bell's cheapest plan and it's about $40 including monthly bonus credit for 10 months. I could probably find cheaper. My internet is $60/mth through Start.ca (now called something else as the monthly bill name is different). $1,500 prop taxes? wtf? But makes sense as I dont think rates are that much different from area to area (unless yours does have a low rate), but the assessed value of your home will be low. I pay like $7,000 taxes/year and I got a small one car driveway house. lol. When I lived in a 1000 sq ft condo over 10 years ago, I was still paying about $3,000 I think. Fuck.
 
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I'm on Bell's cheapest plan and it's about $40 including monthly bonus credit for 10 months. I could probably find cheaper. My internet is $60/mth through Start.ca (now called something else). $1,500 prop taxes? wtf? But makes sense as I dont think rates are that much different from area to area (unless yours does have a low rate), but the assessed value of your home will be low. I pay like $7,000 taxes/year and I got a small one car driveway house. lol. When I lived in a 1000 sq ft condo over 10 years ago, I was still paying about $3,000 I think. Fuck.
Thing with Bell is that I don't have any telephone wiring so that's why I'm not really enticed to go with them even if it would be cheaper. Yeah property taxes are extremly cheap and we have sooo many services from the township here it's crazy. Like there's even a curling only rink. When I had water pressure issues I called the township and the guy was at my house knocking up on the door a minute later, he said it was easier than to continue talking on the phone. I'm so not used to this kind of service. I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Though demographics changes are happening like in most of Ontario. At least I got to live again what was old Canada for a few years.
 
I pay 60$ a month for natural gas mostly for heating and BBQ and 72$ a month for electricity. That has been the case for the 6 years I've been here, no increase so far with equal payment plan.

Cellphone I have Fizz for 26$ a month for 4GB data CAN/US. Internet is lots more expensive though with Eastlink at 96$ a month for 1Gb/s unlimited though Bell put Fibe service here last year. Property taxes here are 1475$ a year for my house and I have one of the most expensive places in town. It costs me less to live here in 2025 dollars than my condo in Ottawa in 2000 dollars, crazy.

Never heard of Fizz before. How long have they been around?
I've had Freedom for years, which costs me about the same but without US and only 400mb of data. Might just have to switch.
 
Never heard of Fizz before. How long have they been around?
I've had Freedom for years, which costs me about the same but without US and only 400mb of data. Might just have to switch.
It's a Vidéotron service. In Ontario for over a year, I used to be with them in Québec. You get perks, data can be transferred one month to another. I really like them. They also offer Internet for cheap but not yet in Ontario.

 
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Buy stuff from the bottom shelves not eye level.

Get supermarket loyalty cards

Multi buy discounts

Bulk buy and store

Buy reduced price food due sell by date

Choose supermaket you shop at carefully

Over time these add up to make a big difference.
 
Buy stuff from the bottom shelves not eye level.

Get supermarket loyalty cards

Multi buy discounts

Bulk buy and store

Buy reduced price food due sell by date

Choose supermaket you shop at carefully

Over time these add up to make a big difference.
Yup.

And dont be too proud unless it's a crime ridden sketchy place. Who cares if you shop at a bargain chain or dollar store. I do, and I got good money. Who cares. I'll save the $20. Dont give a shit if a friend or coworker sees me shopping there. But, some people make it a big deal not to shop at lower tier stores because it looks bad and they are afraid someone they know will see them and think they are a cheapskate dumbass.

Tip for all, you know how some companies have different banner tiers? Like they run a low end tier, middle tier and a premium chain? Unless they are totally run separately somehow in terms of ordering product, the parent head office controls buying from suppliers, they get the product and they ship it out to stores themselves how they feel like it. Same product. Same cost price. It's not like the higher end chain gets the better boxes of cookies then the lower chain. Its the same wholesale cases.

It's different if it's a liquidator or special deal to clear crap out and there's agreement to dump it at the lower end chain. But for normal product, it's the same shit dispersed at all their stores.

Then again, I get it. Some people dont want to shop at the cheaper stores because they are grubbier, the people shopping there are grubbier, and these stores wont have the full selection of higher end products or departments. But if youre buying standard stuff sold anywhere, it'll be cheaper there. Just comes down to if you care a lot about the non-price shopping experience.
 
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Choose supermaket you shop at carefully
Shop in more than one supermarket and see what items are cheaper in each one. Also take advantage of all the deals in each supermarket.

If you have an outdoor market you'll often find fruit and veg are cheaper there.
 
Yup.

And dont be too proud unless it's a crime ridden sketchy place. Who cares if you shop at a bargain chain or dollar store. I do, and I got good money. Who cares. I'll save the $20. Dont give a shit if a friend or coworker sees me shopping there. But, some people make it a big deal not to shop at lower tier stores because it looks bad and they are afraid someone they know will see them and think they are a cheapskate dumbass.

Tip for all, you know how some companies have different banner tiers? Like they run a low end tier, middle tier and a premium chain? Unless they are totally run separately somehow in terms of ordering product, the parent head office controls buying from suppliers, they get the product and they ship it out to stores themselves how they feel like it. Same product. Same cost price. It's not like the higher end chain gets the better boxes of cookies then the lower chain. Its the same wholesale cases.

It's different if it's a liquidator or special deal to clear crap out and there's agreement to dump it at the lower end chain. But for normal product, it's the same shit dispersed at all their stores.

Then again, I get it. Some people dont want to shop at the cheaper stores because they are grubbier, the people shopping there are grubbier, and these stores wont have the full selection of higher end products or departments. But if youre buying standard stuff sold anywhere, it'll be cheaper there. Just comes down to if you care a lot about the non-price shopping experience.
I remember a lady that put her Giant Tiger bags inside Holt Renfrew's ones just to not look like a poorer person. Ridiculous.
 
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