First Apartment Question

[Ratatapa]

OK i just moved in my first appart ever, and everything is set to go. The only problem for me is Grocery, as stupid as it sounds i never did Grocery in my life since i lived with my folks all the time.

So how do you actually do your Grocery when you live semi alone? i mean do you budget high brand and etc? i have a budget of 300-400/month of Grocery and that mean any time of grocery exemble Ketchup (that i know i won't have to buy each month)

I am currently Living Alone with my Girlfriend coming like 4-5days/7

If anyone from Quebec reads this and can tell me which Grocery is pretty cheap for a first timer would also be appropriate

(Kinda fell lame to ask this)

[Dontkare]

I would suggest shopping at stores that seem fairly obvious to be cheap. I.E. if they have outlet in their name, or bargain. Also you don't always have to buy brand name items. Often times the store brands are just as good (with the exception of peanut butter, I hate store brand peanut butter.) Keep an eye out for sales like two for one. Or if they have Costco in Canada (or an equivalent) get a membership there. For Costco it's $50 a year but you will save so much damn money shopping there you won't even notice the $50.

[tornfleshofsoul]

Plan your meals for the week, best way to save money. Worst thing you can do is not know what kind of food you want to eat and you end up going shopping when you're hungry and you're like "ooooh I want that, and that and that and that and that" and all of a sudden you have 7 bags of chips.. Always eat before you go buy food!

[Siniroth]

I'm not living in Quebec so I don't know about cheapest grocery stores... but I just moved into an apartment myself a week.5 ago.

Best advice I can give for grocery and budget is go around the outside perimeter of the store, if grocery stores there are set up anything like in Ontario (I don't see why not though) it will get you the necessary fruits/veggies, bread, meat, dairy, and frozen stuff. Budget costs primarily around that, and for extra things you know you want like flour, sugar, coffee, pasta, know what you want to get and only go in the aisles with those things in them.

Try to avoid wandering aisles unless you know you have extra money, cause you'll be more tempted to buy random junk you don't really need and shouldn't really put money into unless you know you can afford it.

If the grocery store is really close to where you live, get a push cart or something, it'll help limit what you buy to what you need, obviously if you have a car and take that then that advice won't be useful

If you get flyers at your apartment look through them for sales, and keep an eye out for sales at the store even if you don't need to hoard every dollar, and put the amounts you don't spend out of the grocery budget (don't lower it unless you spend significantly less than you budgeted for) into either normal savings or put it towards buying something new for apartment if you need a new piece of furniture or something.

Iunno what else, only done grocery shopping once and that was the initial buy that's a lot more expensive cause of all the random necessities you also need (Laundry stuff, cleaning stuff, things that you don't buy every time you go gIrocery shopping), I'm not actually sure how much I'm going to end up spending, but I've budgeted $500 a month and going to reduce/increase that as I can/need.

Edit: Ooh, if you can cook at all, make as much from scratch as you can, it's significantly cheaper than pre-prepared meals.

[Dontkare]

Plan your meals for the week, best way to save money. Worst thing you can do is not know what kind of food you want to eat and you end up going shopping when you're hungry and you're like "ooooh I want that, and that and that and that and that" and all of a sudden you have 7 bags of chips.. Always eat before you go buy food!

THIS x1000

Fucking never go shopping when you're hungry. You'll want to buy every last thing you see.

[Shojin]

Always eat before you go buy food!

Hahaha. This is the best advice in this thread so far, I've learned the hard way over years. Going grocery shopping on an empty stomach, especially if you are impulse buying is a very bad idea.

Also, $400 a month for 1 person should be waaaay more than enough, I get by on $300 a month for 2 people. So long as you aren't stocking up on $10 pizzas and tubs of Haagen Dazs.

[Cesaria]

Learn to cook some basic stuff, plan out what you're having (doesn't have to be obsessional - just if you do a weekly shop, make sure you've actually got enough for 7 nights' evening meals), make a shopping list.

Otherwise you impulse buy, end up coming back with a tonne of bags of what turns out to be utter crap and get to the middle of the week and realize you've actually got no proper food in the house! This still happens with us these days when I'm not organized enough to go with a list or at the least vague ideas of what I'm planning on cooking that week.

Worth playing about and working out what store own-brand stuff you can get away with, and what you're brand name onry on... I can't fucking stand cheap coffee but there's a lot of own-label stuff I have no problem at all with buying.

If it's on special but you're never going to use the amount of it that you'll have to buy - it's not actually a bargain. I remember clearing out my Gran's house when she died and her spare room was like geological strata of things that were on buy-one-get-one-free at Morrissons... you went down through the jars of coffee layer, into the boxes of cornflake layer and so on. She hadn't saved any money buying all this shit - because she never fucking ate cornflakes anyway!

And never underestimate the ridiculous speed with which you'll go through toilet roll - that one shocked us all when we moved out of halls of residence into student houses!

[Siniroth]

And never underestimate the ridiculous speed with which you'll go through toilet roll - that one shocked us all when we moved out of halls of residence into student houses!

Oh god this, keep two full packs of the stuff, when one is empty, on next shopping trip buy one, guarantee you won't run out, and it's something you WILL end up using, so not a shitty purchase (pardon the pun)

[Ratatapa]

but with 300$ can you actually eat decent healthy stuff or your stuck with like Can stuff or what so ever?

[Kurp]

I'm not sure how groceries prices in Canada compare to the US, but here it's easy to eat well on $10 a day unless you're eating out every day.

[Osede]

but with 300$ can you actually eat decent healthy stuff or your stuck with like Can stuff or what so ever?

if you cook your self, 300$ should far enough to eat healthy. As long as you are cooking by yourself.

Althought I'm staying in US, but usually 80USD would good for me to pick up the grocery for about two weeks, which include lunch and dinner

[Azalee]

If you don't mind leftovers, you can always make lots of something and save the rest for later. Great for grabbing on the go for lunch at work, or if you get home too late to make anything new.

[Norellicus]

$300 is plenty to eat decently, I lived on ~$200 and was still getting more than just ramen every day.

(though I cheated a little and got ramen sometimes anyway, it's tasty and allowed me to splurge on other stuff like ice cream!)

[tornfleshofsoul]

I'm in Ottawa ON and me and my GF get by eating very healthy with 300-400 a month. Not saying we buy all organic stuff, we typically don't, but we do have our salads, chicken breasts, we make our own pizzas sometimes (Which is usually more expensive than buying the frozen kind). We do alot with chicken (Costco has cheapest chicken breasts) Salad with Chicken on it, or buy a bunch of wraps and just fill them with chicken and veggies (If you need to use your veggies before they go bad this is an awesome way).

Another piece of advice I can give is to think out your shopping habits. Like I mentioned earlier, plan your meals. On top of that, however, also plan your trips. Don't go to the store and buy a 5lb bag of carrots if you only ever eat salad once a week and only use 1 carrot in it. Same with anything that comes in big portions. Typically the way we go is we do a major shop every 2 weeks (Cereal, canned stuff, frozen stuff, etc) and we buy the veggies and breads once or twice a week as we need them just so we're not throwing stuff out.

[Asai]

$300 is plenty to eat decently, I lived on ~$200 and was still getting more than just ramen every day.

(though I cheated a little and got ramen sometimes anyway, it's tasty and allowed me to splurge on other stuff like ice cream!)

This.

[shukudai]

Way more enough than you need, and I do live in Montreal as well, and i've got only one supermarket near me, the prices aren't that great, and I don't spend that much.

I usually do fruits/eggs for the morning, eggs are cheap, 5 minutes to make.

Various other things, chicken, tuna, corn, all cheap. I make a huge batch of taco meet like once every 2 weeks, that lasts me like 6 meals, cheapo pizza (pita bread+sauce+low amount of cheese), rice, etc

My warning: Don't cave and order in a lot. When you have the money, it's easy to pick up the phone (or order online lol), and bam, food in 30 minutes, but your empties your wallet super fast. Don't do it often.

[Galkaeater]

Cooking stuff in bulk should save you money on ingrediants aswell as time and try not to eat out or have take aways much.
Also you dont always have to cook some thing exotic I myself have Just pasta and baked beans often, fills you up and its pretty healthy.

[Galkaeater]

oh yeah try to go to the larger supermarkets to do most of your shopping if possible

[Mytiwar]

Rata, seems like Maxi/Super C are the way to go around here. I can't really stand either though because it's always full of those welfare smelly fucks.

I go to IGA, great sales during the "super semaine IGA". Only happens once a month but totally worth stocking on some things during that time.

Edit: Don't go to metro, ripoff extraordinaire.

[Ragns]

Always eat before you go buy food!

This.

The best way to save money is to hunt special deals and plans what you're gonna do based on them... which this site can help you do: http://www.soscuisine.com/flyer_specials.php?sos_l=fr

Also fill your freezer with as much meat as possible when there's a deal on them.