My trip to the supermarket today left me wondering how many people even get by, these days.
At the same time, it's somewhat ironic that one of the current Administration's primary talking points — before the election — was reducing the cost of food... and here we are — about a year into their "reign" — and food is more expensive than ever.
But then again, trusting anything politicians say is a dodgy proposition at best!
Anyway, I was once again amazed by how little in my basket ended up costing slightly over $100.
And I say that, knowing that I'm pretty much a ninja shopper, using every weekly special I can get my hands on, along with affinity programs, electronic coupons and loyalty programs and special offers that come to me from the grocery via my email.
According to the supermarket's app, we have actually saved a little bit over $11,000 since becoming members of their loyalty program. Of course "saving" is perhaps a bit of a misnomer, but it's potentially true to say that we've saved $11,000 compared to somebody who's completely clueless.
Perhaps the biggest and most noticeable change in terms of food shopping in the year 2026 (vs. 2016) is the fact that we eat what's on sale, and we eat what we can afford and there are a number of things we simply don't buy anymore no matter how much we might want them.
Just to make it clear, we're definitely not starving or anything, but there are definitely weeks when our dinners are somewhat of a variation on a theme, you might even call them a song of one note. But it definitely beats going hungry.
This week, Safeway was having one of their almost ridiculous specials on pork chops, offering them for $0.99 a pound (about $2.20/kg) instead of the usual $4.00-$5.00.
Needless to say, I bought two large packages, which is something made possible by the fact that we have a very large freezer out in the garage. Without that large freezer, I think our food situation would be far more difficult.
That freezer has also been a great way for us to extend our food budget by being able to freeze a lot of the Fresh Veggies we grow during the summer. We have everything from green beans and snow peas to sliced up apples ready to put in apple pies out there!
But, to return to the main event, those two very large packages of pork chops — which cost all of about $13 — will be enough to provide protein for dinner for the two of us, for about 10 nights!
In a sense, food shopping has become a lot like a treasure hunt. You never know what you're going to find, and if you find something amazing you'd better pick it all up while you're there and have it in front of you!
Which brings up another aspect of how to stretch your budget. Never spend the food budget on other things like bills, clothing or niceties because you always want to have money available and ready to go when amazing deals show up. Some of these deals you know are going to happen in advance, like dirt cheap leftover turkeys right after Thanksgiving, but many things are basically a surprise that you find when you find it.
And you have to pounce!
You also learn to find creative ways to prepare things that supermarkets bought too much of and ended up putting on deep sale because the public decided they were too weird or not what they wanted. Buffalo burgers? No problem! Lamb shanks? No problem! Oxtails? No problem!
Sometimes you just get lucky. A few months back I happened to be at the supermarket when they were putting out several of the large 20lb bags of rice marked at 50% off because the bags had rubbed against something during transport, smearing a good part of the writing to illegibility. Nothing wrong with the rice, just the packaging wasn't really "legal" anymore. No problem!
I have pretty much become the primary grocery shopper at our place, in part because Mrs. Denmarkguy says she "doesn't have the patience" to detail and map out everything the way I do. I'm OK with that!
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Sunday!
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Created at 2026.02.01 00:16 PST
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